Asian Games 2023: Indian Kabaddi team edged out the Chinese Taipei in the finals to clinch 100th medal

New Delhi: The Indian women’s kabaddi team are once again the Asian Games champions, and with their gold medal, India has also reached the 100 medals overall milestone in one single Asian Games edition for the first time in history.

The whole world was in shock at the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games when the unbeatable Indian kabaddi teams were denied the gold medals by Iran in both the men’s and women’s divisions, to announce that kabaddi now has a new champion in the making.

Indian kabaddi teams did not take this defeat lightly and prepared in a hard manner so that when the time came, they could take their rightful place on the throne of the kabaddi world back.

Indian women’s kabaddi team on Saturday did exactly what they were supposed to do and defeated the dark horses of the tournament, Chinese Taipei, in the finals by 26-25, to win their gold and throne back.

🇮🇳’𝒔 #𝑵𝒂𝒓𝒊𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒌𝒕𝒊 𝒃𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒉𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒄 1⃣0⃣0⃣𝒕𝒉 𝒎𝒆𝒅𝒂𝒍 𝒂𝒕 #𝑨𝒔𝒊𝒂𝒏𝑮𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒔2022 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝑮𝑶𝑳𝑫🥇😍

Heartiest congratulations to the Women’s Kabaddi Team on winning the coveted GOLD medal at #AsianGames 👏

With sheer… pic.twitter.com/NBnpCGhPnv

— Anurag Thakur (@ianuragthakur) October 7, 2023

Indian teams were looking more defensive and were constantly leaking points from defence, which helped the Chinese Taipei women to stay in the hunt till the very end.

Indian raiders, however, looked way more promising and were scoring points back to back and kept India’s lead alive till the end.

The Indian team were leading by 14-9, in the first half but was pushed hard by the Chinese Taipei, who had a comparatively better second half with a 16-12 lead in the second half. However, it did not prove to be enough as they eventually lost the game by 1 point and were forced to settle down for the silver medal.

The moment Indian women’s Kabaddi team won India the 100th Medal and 25th Gold Medal….!!! 🇮🇳pic.twitter.com/U53r9kA4HI

— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) October 7, 2023

Interestingly, both the teams were unbeaten till the final and had played only one draw, which was against each other in the group stage, where both India and the Chinese Taipei finished 34-34, scoring on the board.