9 Indian Wrestlers , 5 greco roman and 4 woman wrestlers were denied US visas as they are below the age of 20 and are unemployed.

What the hell is this?

https://x.com/FootyNUVA/status/2109297486347329976?s=20

source :- https://kheltoday.com/pro-wrestling-league-2027/pro-wrestling-league-returns-with-blockbuster-season-6-in-delhi-asian-games-medallists-felicitated-at-grand-launch/

(I realised the post was getting longer, so I have just covered Compound here; Recurve Archery comes up next)

Asian Games’26 was by far our most successful campaign in Archery. The highs of the fixtures can’t be put into words. Compound Archery has always been our stronger area, but winning even a medal in recurve was huge for us. This time, we have outperformed powerhouse Korea in the field, winning a total of 5 Gold medals (3 for Korea) and 9 medals in total.

For those who don’t know, there are two types of archery bows that are featured in international events. Typically, when we think of an archery bow, we think of a traditional recurve bow. To combat some issues during hunting, a hunter from America discovered the compound bow - a bow with a pulley-string mechanism that is much more stable than a traditional recurve bow and gets fired much faster than a recurve bow.

However, because compound archery is a recent invention, recurve archery was considered to be the only archery sport in the Olympics, but owing to the popularity of compound bows in North America, the US managed to lobby and sneak in one compound event in the LA Olympics’28 - Mixed Team Compound- which is still just one event, but one more than what we ever had in the Olympics.

A compound bow is much more stable and shoots arrows with much more precision owing to less force at full draw due to the pulley string mechanism, a sight pin, and a peep sight to give you a fixed point to shoot your arrows, while in recurve, the string of the bow slips off your fingers, which makes the release a lot more important. Completely missing the board is not unheard of in Recurve archery, but shooting even a 6 in Compound Archery is super rare.

In a compound bow, as you start drawing the arrow, the peak force you experience while drawing is somewhat in the middle of the draw length, which can be overcome easily. When you draw the arrow to full draw before shooting, the force on your fingers is 80% less than with a recurve bow. In a compound bow, you can aim at your target much, much easier and adjust the sight long before shooting the arrow; meanwhile, in a recurve, every centimetre you draw the arrow, you experience heavier and heavier force on your fingers, and stabilising keeps getting harder. You experience dozens of kilograms of force on your fingers at the full draw, and stabilising the arrow becomes very hard as a result. If a recurve archer is holding the arrow at full draw for too long, you can be certain that it’s not going to be a 10 or even a 9.

Let’s not get carried away and stay to the topic: India’s performance at this edition of the Asian Games. This was by far the best performance we’ve ever had, and it’s not even a fair comparison to the past editions given how rarely we win in recurve archery. Last time we did a clean sweep in Compound Events (5/5 Golds) while in Recurve, we won Men’s Team Silver and Women’s Team Bronze. This time, the wait for an individual recurve medal came to an end after Tarundeep Singh won a Silver in 2010; owing to the sheer brilliance of 17-year-old Kumkum Mohod, who clinched Individual Women’s Gold and played a crucial part in clinching Gold in Women’s Team along with Kirti and Ankita Bhakat.

Let’s discuss Compound Archery first.

Compound Men’s Individual(Bronze) and Team (Gold)

In Compound, our squad of 3 archers was Sahil Jadhav, Kushal Dalal and Ganesh Thiru Muru, and honestly they aren’t close to the best we have. But Indian selection trials painted a much different picture, as the mainstays of the Indian compound archery team like Abhishek Verma, Rishabh Yadav, and Ojas Deotale - all failed to finish in the top 3 in Indian National trials in Sonipat.

Rishabh Yadav is currently, I feel, the best compound archer in the men’s division we have, but he finished at the dreaded 4th spot in the selection trials, just a spot behind Ganesh, failing to advance to the main squad. Rishabh, along with Jyothi, has won several medals, including a World Championship Silver in 2025, so it was a huge miss in my opinion not to have him in the squad, but yeah, it’s fair with respect to the trials.

Coming to the individual performances, Sahil did 709/820 in Qualifications while Ganesh did 705/720, finishing 5th and 12th respectively. Last time Abhishek and Rishabh secured an all-India Final in the individual compound, but this time the path wasn’t as straightforward. Ganesh was a bit inconsistent with his mid 140s/150 scores, while Sahil was a bit more consistent than him, and they both were scheduled to meet in RO16. They both cleared their RO32; Ganesh did 144/50 while Rajesh did 149/150. However, when they came up against each other, Ganesh did 149 while Sahil fell with a 148. Ganesh went on to win comfortably with a 148 in the Quarter-Finals but ended up with a 144 in the Semis against Kim Jonho’s 148. He did win a Bronze by again scoring a 149/150/ A bit more consistency in scoring could’ve landed Ganesh a different colour medal here.

Coming to the team events, it was a smoother ride with India facing UAE and scoring a great 235/240 in RO16. 235 against Bhutan to enter Semis, and a 236 against Korea’s 229 to enter the Finals facing China. China came all guns blazing but ended up blundering in one arrow with an 8, where India’s brilliant 238 inched past China to clinch us Gold. Great performance in the Team event this time, but a Compound Gold in Individual would’ve been better.

Olympic parallels: Nothing here. Compound Individual or Team isn’t part of the LA Olympics’28.

Compound Women’s Individual(Bronze) and Team (Gold)

Jyothi, Prithika and Chikith are a very decent squad. Solid. Nothing much to complain about here. Parneet Kaur and Aditi are notable misses, but these 3 are good enough to make us miss them much.

Individual Compound was rather a disappointing outing. Chikitha and Jyothi made the cut, with Chikitha topping the qualifications with 705/720 and Jyothi finishing at 13th with a 699/720. Chikitha won with a 149 and a 148, and went to the Quarter-Finals to face Nurisa (Indonesia), to whom she lost by a point after scoring 143/150. Not a good score.

Jyothi went to RO16 with a great 148/150 but got defeated after a 146 when she faced 14-year-old Yeonseo (youngest Korean archer ever fielded in any major championship), who shot a perfect 150.

In the team event, we started with a great 238 against Mongolia in RO16, then an average 233 against Kazakhstan in the quarter-finals, and then edged past Korea by a single point with a 234 to enter the Finals. China was coming off a great form, so 234 wasn’t going to be enough, but there the girls did 238 to win the Gold. Very good performance, considering the investment being done by Asian powerhouses sniffing a possible inclusion in the Olympics down the line.

Olympic parallels: Nothing here. Compound Individual or Team isn’t part of the LA Olympics’28.

Compound Mixed Team (Gold, Olympic Event)

Sahil and Chikitha were our best individual archers in qualifications, so they had to be paired up as a rule for mixed compound. Please note that this is an Olympic event in the LA Olympics’28.

Since the mixed format only has 8 arrows per archer, it is not unusual to see a 160/160 score in a match, and that’s how Sahil-Chikitha started in RO16 against Mongolia. In the Quarter-Finals, they scored a great 159 against Kazakhstan. In the semis, they came up against Thailand and edged past by a point with a 156, pretty okay, I’d say. In the finals, they faced a pretty strong pair of Yonghee and Jungyeon. The pair got tied at 157, and India scored 20/20 in the tie-breaker against 19 by Koreans to clinch Gold and ultimately confirm the quota for the LA Olympics’28.

Please note that the quota is won by a country and not individuals, so it’s not for sure Sahik-Chikitha will compete at LA.

Olympic Chances: I’ll be honest here. India hasn’t looked like the powerhouse in Compound Mixed Team which they looked like in earlier years, especially after Olympic inclusion and that one stage in the World Cup where they introduced 11 for a bullseye. Sahil-Chikitha are a decent pair and can definitely medal in the Olympics, but Jyothi/Rishabh would be our best bet; for that, they’ll have to make it into the national squad and perform in the ranking rounds. Scores Sahil/Chikitha have put up are great, so I don’t have any doubt about their capabilities, but Asia isn’t the strongest place for Mixed Compound.

There are many Mixed Pairs in the world that are very well capable of winning Gold on their day, including Schlosser/de Laat(Netherlands), Dean/Sullivan, some Mexican or even Colombian pairs, and some Turkish Pairs as well. We’ll have a decent shot at a medal, but there won’t be any scope for errors here. A feww 9s might put us out of medal contention even in RO16. Still hopeful.

Overall summary:

What do you guys think of our compound archery's performance in this edition. More importantly, how do you feel about our chances in LA'28 in Mixed Compound?

Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

The last decade has seen an unprecedented rise in the quality of male javelin throwers in India. The Tokyo heroics of Neeraj Chopra have motivated many youngsters to take up and excel at Javelin in domestic as well as international arena.

From not being able to podium consistently even at Asian Games in recent decades, we have seen our throwers ending up on podium in many elite competitions like Neeraj winning his 2 Olympic and WC medals, 3 Indians in Top-6 at 2023 Budapest WC, Sachin Yadav 4th at Tokyo WC and back to back double podiums at Asian Games as well as the double podium at CWG 2026.
Currently we have atleast 7-8 athletes (not counting Jena who i feel has fallen badly though i hope he somehow makes a comeback) who have already thrown 80m+ at domestic. This includes the big 4 who have thrown 85m+ (Neeraj, Rohit, Yash and Sachin) and some rising youngsters (Shivam, Anand, Arshdeep, Manoj).

However when we look at the women section, we have rarely produced the prospects who can even touch 58m consistently when the international standard for even having a shot at medal is 65m+. The only good thrower who i can remember is Annu Rani who used to throw 60m+ quite consistently but even she has fallen off badly in last 2 years and is barely touching 56-57 now.
We have good competitive female throwers in discuss, shot put or even hammer throw for an instance, so it can’t be genetics.
So, what could be the reason for this?

As part of the 100 years of sports cooperation between India & New Zealand, in a historic first New Zealand U20 Boys & Girls team will be visiting India from 22nd to 28th October 2026 to play a Rugby Series with Indian U20 teams at the Rajgir Sports Complex, Rajgir Bihar.

As part of the 100 years of sports cooperation between India & New Zealand, in a historic first, the U20 Men’s and Women’s teams from New Zealand will be visiting India from 22nd to 28th October 2026 to play a Rugby Series with Indian U20 teams at the Rajgir Sports Complex, Rajgir, Bihar.

The visiting squads – Tama Toa, the men’s team, and Hine Toa, the women’s team – comprise 24 young Māori players selected from across New Zealand and will be supported by a six-member management group. The tour will provide the players with an opportunity to train, compete and exchange knowledge and cultures with their Indian counterparts.

The programme will include joint training sessions, squad-based match activities and cultural and community engagements alongside the Indian U20 squads.

The tour will culminate on 27 October, with four competitive Sevens matches. The programme will feature a men’s match between India and New Zealand, followed by the women’s match and two mixed matches bringing players from both teams together.

(taken from the Rugby India post about it on their website)