Asian Games Medal Drought
India's Badminton and Fencing Campaigns Conclude Without Individual Medals at Asian Games
Anonymous
India’s badminton campaign at the 2026 Asian Games ended with the men’s team bronze as its only medal, and the country failed to win a medal in any of the five individual events for the first time since 2014. PV Sindhu and Unnati Hooda lost their women’s singles quarterfinals, Indian doubles pairs also exited in the last eight, and defending men’s doubles champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty were upset in the round of 32. India’s fencing campaign also ended without a medal, with the men’s sabre team losing to Korea and the women’s foil team falling to Japan in the quarterfinals. In individual women’s sabre, Bhavani Devi advanced from the pool stage and beat Mongolia’s Oulen Tugsjargan before losing in the round of 16 to China’s Rao Xueyi, a 2026 world championship silver medalist; Shreya Gupta also reached the round of 16 before losing to South Korea’s Jeon Ha-young, a Paris Olympics silver medalist.
Key Points
1
PV Sindhu and Unnati Hooda both lost their quarterfinals 1-2: Sindhu took the opening game against China’s Chen Yufei, while Hooda won the second game against Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi.
2
India’s men’s singles players also fell before the quarterfinals: Lakshya Sen lost to Singapore’s Loh Kean Yew in the round of 32, and Ayush Shetty was beaten by Chinese Taipei’s Chou Tien Chen in the pre-quarterfinals.
3
India’s men’s sabre team beat the Philippines 45-27 in the pre-quarterfinals before losing 25-45 to Korea; the women’s foil team had earlier defeated Indonesia 45-24 before its 14-45 quarterfinal loss to Japan.
4
Bhavani Devi lost three of her pool bouts, then secured advancement with two must-win victories before beating Mongolia’s Oulen Tugsjargan 15-8 in the round of 32. Shreya Gupta lost her round-of-16 bout to Jeon Ha-young 15-6.
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