India may win fewer medals in track and field in Jakarta than Incheon ’14

NEW DELHI: India have always done well in the Asian Games, even in athletics. At the last edition in 2014 at the South Korean city Incheon, India won 12 medals in individual athletics.

India won one gold i n women’s discus throw through the veteran Seema Antil Punia, three silver medals (men’s discus throw, women’s 800 metres and women’s 20 km walk). And eight bronze medals. India also won a gold i n t he women’s 4x400m relay at Incheon, but that was a team event.

So what are the chances that India will better their tally at this year’s Asian Games beginning in Jakarta from August 18?

There are 50 Indian athletes at the Asian Games, with 41 of them competing in individual events. (The places of 10 of these 41 athletes are tentative and will be confirmed after f urther trials on August 15-16.) These athletes will be competing across 30 different individual events for men and women.

Data on the performances of these 41 athletes tells us that only 10 of them have a chance of winning at least a bronze. If this turns out to be the case, it would be a lower medal tally than that of 2014.

So how did we arrive at that number?

What we did was look at the performances of the 41 Indian athletes and their competition from Asia since January 2016. This was done using data available on the website of the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF), the world governing body of athletics.

TWO-ENTRY LIMIT

We noted the best performances of the Indian athletes, and those of their competitors. Each country can only send two athletes per event, a limit imposed by the Olympic Council of Asia, the governing body for the Asian Games. This helps narrow down potential competition for Indian athletes.

If the number of Asian competitors with better personal bests comes down to two or less, then that Indian athlete’s chan- Athlete Jinson Johnson Jinson Johnson Sudha Singh Hima Das PU Chitra Tejinder Toor Neeraj Chopra ces of winning at least a bronze goes up and we can count that person as a medal hopeful.

Let’s take an example to make our process clearer. India’s lone entrant for the men’s triple jump is Arpinder Singh. Now Arpinder’s personal best since Janu- Gender Event M M W W W M M 800m 1500m Steeplechase 400m 1500m Shot put Javelin Throw

Best performance mark 1m 45.65s 3m 37.86s 9m 26.55s 51.13s 4m 11.55s 20.4 m 87.43 m ary 2016 was 17.09m in June at Guwahati.

ARPINDER MEDAL HOPE

There are four Chinese athletes and one Indian athlete who’ve jumped longer than him in the past two-and-a-half years. Indian athlete Renjith Maheshwary is injured and not competing. And because of the two athlete per event limit, only two of those four Chinese athletes could be there at the Asian Games.

Which means that there will be only two athletes at the Asian Games who’ve jumped longer than Arpinder in the past twoand-a-half years, increasing his Good chance of winning a medal

Since Jan 1, 2016 Times athlete was near the mark

7 2 2 7 NA 3 5

No. of Asian athletes who’ve done better

1 4 4 2 5 0 1

No. of those Asian athletes taking part

1 1 2 2 2 0 1

DATA TELLS US ONLY 11 ATHLETES HAVE A CHANCE OF WINNING AT LEAST A BRONZE. THIS COULD MEAN A LOWER MEDAL TALLY FOR INDIA THAN IN 2014 INCHEON.

chances of winning at least a bronze.

There are a number of assumptions we’re making here, of course.

That Arpinder and all the other Indian athletes won’t have off-days, and that someone with a lower personal best in the past won’t suddenly peak in Indonesia.

If we look at the table, the one athlete who is the undisputed best and a sure-shot for gold is shot-putter Tejinder Pal Singh Toor. Since January 2016, no Asian athlete has had a better performance than the 20.4m thrown by Tejinder in Patiala last year.