After 150 days from today, the 19th Asian Games will begin in Hangzhou city of China. All the players have also geared up for this biggest sports gathering of Asian countries to be held from 23rd September. The main reason for this is the ticket to the Olympics. The gold medal in the Asian Games not only makes the players and teams the top of the class in Asia but also directly qualifies them for the Olympic Games. The biggest attractions this time around are T20 cricket, e-sports and break dance, the most popular sport in the subcontinent, besides games like bridge and chess.
Hangzhou City is the capital of Jiangsu Province in Southeast China. This city is also called the hub of China’s e-commerce and IT sector. The headquarters of Alibaba and Ant Group are in this city. Hangzhou, situated on the Yangtse Delta, is the second largest city after Shanghai. Hangzhou’s famous West Lake and Grand Canal are also included in the United Nations World Heritage Site. Hangzhou city also hosted the prestigious G-20 summit in the year 2016. This is the third time that a Chinese city is hosting the Asian Games. Prior to this, in 1990, this responsibility was given to the capital of China, Beijing and in the year 2010, to the city of Guangzhou. In 2015, Hangzhou was selected to host the 19th Asian Games at the 34th General Assembly meeting of the Olympic Council of Asia.
The motto of the 45-nation Asian Games is ‘Connect in the Future, Heart to Heart’. In these Asian Games, players will compete with each other for 482 gold medals ie 482 events of total 42 sports. The Games will also host the 28 compulsory sports that are part of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. In this, athletes will have a chance to win maximum 48 gold medals in athletics, 41 gold in swimming, 33 gold in shooting and 18 in wrestling. This time there is also a chance to win 8 gold medals in e-sports ie games played on computer, which include famous games like League of Legends, FIFA, PUBG and Street Fighter. These games have three mascots, namely Tsongtsong, Lianlian and Chanchun. All three men are robotic superheroes, originating from the ancient Liangchu City, the West Lake, and the Grand Canal. This smart trio of mascots are collectively known as ‘Memories of Chiangnan’.
These games will be organized in 44 different places and stadiums. Athletes or teams that win gold medals will be eligible to participate in the Paris Olympics 2024. Like every Asian Games, this time also the eyes of sports lovers will be on the athletics event, in which China’s Wei Yongli and Qu Manchi in the women’s 100 meters sprint race and China’s Sushant Singh Rajput in the men’s 100 meters race. There will be special expectations from Pingthien. On the other hand, there will be special expectations from Avinash Sable, Jinson Johnson, Aldhos Paul, Neeraj Chopra and Anu Rani in the Indian athletics team. India’s men’s and women’s hockey teams would also like to enter the Paris Olympics by winning gold medals in the Asian Games. Apart from this, the Indian players on whom everyone will be pinning their hopes are Atanu Das and Tarundeep Rai in archery, PV Sindhu, Gayatri Gopichand, Ashwini Ponnappa, Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen in badminton, Nikhat Zareen and Lovlina Borgohain in boxing, Jaggi Shivdasani in bridge, Charanjyot Singh in eSports, Anirban Lahiri and Aditi Ashok in Golf. China, Japan, South Korea and India have dominated the medals tally in the 18 Asian Games held so far. While China and Japan have a total of more than three thousand medals, India has also won more than six hundred and fifty medals so far.
(Vivek Sharma)
Read the Latest India News Today on The Eastern Herald.
