Finance
The Indian men’s badminton team won silver at the 19th Asian Games on Sunday after losing the gold medal final 2-3 to reigning champions China.
This was India’s first-ever silver medal in a significant continental meet in the men’s team event. Furthermore, this was India’s first medal in the men’s team event at the Asian Games in 37 years.
The last time the men’s team won a medal at the Asian Games was in 1986 in Seoul. Prakash Padukone and Syed Modi led the team of Vimal Kumar, Ravi Kunte, Uday Pawar, Sanat Mishra, and Leroy D’sa.
India felt the absence of top singles player H.S Prannoy, who was not fielded in the final match against the reigning champions on Sunday because of an injury he picked in the semifinal win against South Korea on Saturday.
In the absence of Prannoy. Mithun Manjunath lost to China’s Hongyang Weng in the fifth encounter.
Lakshya Sen defeated world No. 6 Shi Yuqi 22-20, 14-21, 21-18 in the first tie. The world No. 3 men’s doubles combo of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy then defeated world No. 2 pair Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang 21-15, 21-18 to give India an early 2-0 lead.
However, the Chinese team leveled the gold medal tie 2-2 when Li Shifeng defeated former world No. 1 Srikanth 24-22, 21-9, and the men’s pair of Liu Yuchen and Ou Xuanyi defeated Dhruv Kapila and Sai Pratheek 21-6, 21-5.
Manjunath failed to preserve the match in the last tie, falling 6-21, 15-21. As a result, India lost the tie 2-3 and settled for the silver medal.
Badminton events at the Asian Games 2023 will continue with the singles, doubles and mixed doubles events, starting from October 2.
