Asian Games 2023: This could be India’s Altius moment
Hangzhou Asian Games are officially underway. (Preliminary rounds of some sports have already taken place, though.) With its biggest-ever contingent of 650 athletes (and 200 officials), India is expected to turn a new page in its sports handbook.
A BIT OF HISTORYWriting in 1959, Anthony de Mello, the main organiser of the 1951 Asiad, recounted the first opening ceremony in words that merit repetition.
“What was the greatest moment in Indian sport? There was never an occasion to beat that of March 4th, 1951. On that historic day for the sport of India—indeed for the sport of Asia, even the world — the first Asian Games were opened…It was Asia marching ever nearer to the great Olympic ideal of ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’—faster, higher, stronger….
India—the ‘Big Brother of Asia’—had given the lead in this the finest sporting venture of the Orient.”
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Just four years after independence, with hundreds of thousands of partition refugees still camping in the environs of Delhi, India’s capital put together the first truly pan-Asian sporting event. It was a time of hope, of idealism.
It is not too difficult to see why an Indian watching the parade of nations marching under the shadow of the majestic ramparts of Delhi’s Purana Qila, the Old Fort, would begin fancying his or her country as the new ‘Big Brother’ of Asia.
Since then, the Games have evolved and are perhaps the second-best multidiscipline event in the world, second only to the Olympics. An Asian Games podium finish, in some sports at least, is as important as an Olympic or World Championships medal.
THE HANGZHOU TESTFor India, the Hangzhou Games can prove that the country is on track to winning medals in
