With the closing of the Asian Games in Jakarta on Sunday, it can and must be said that some soul searching will help our teams improve their foresight, achieve better results in future and steer clear of complacency.
With 20 gold, 20 silver and 22 bronze medals, Iran finished sixth, one place below the rank at the previous edition of the quadrennial games in Incheon, South Korea, and two notches below the 2010 edition.
With the benefit of hindsight it can be said that our scoring is Asia has been of the descending order.
Iran finished fifth in Incheon with 21 gold, 18 silver and 22 bronze medals, and at the 2010 Guangzhou Games in China was fourth bagging 20 gold, 15 silver and 24 bronze medals.
Prior to the games, the National Olympic Committee, which is in charge of the Iran delegation in the games, had predicted a rise in gold medal winners, expecting at least 25 gold to be collected by the national athletes. However, the ground reality proved that that was not ot be!
The fifth place went to Uzbekistan which won 21 gold. Uzbekistan had finished 11th in Incheon far below Iran with only eight gold medals but the Central Asian nation bagged 13 more gold medals this year and had a 6-step jump overall, taking away Iran’s fifth rank in the last day of the continental tournament.
Iran took the very first gold medals in both men and women’s kabaddi in Jakarta as well as gold in the 3000m steeplechase by Hossein Keyhani who also set a record in the sport.
Despite the precious gold count in new fields, Iran failed to win medals in some sports in which the nation had taken gold in the previous rounds.
Missed Shots
The competition in archery can be compared to world games regarding the difficulty due to the presence of world champions from South Korea. However, Iran won one gold and one bronze in 2014 in Incheon. The count fell to one bronze in Jakarta and the rest of arrows shot by both men and women’s teams missed to hit the gold target.
Speaking of shots, Iran’s shooting team also failed to repeat the results of 2014. One gold and two silver medals in Incheon declined to one consolation bronze this year.
The cycling team which had won one gold, one silver and one bronze in 2014 returned home empty-handed.
Despite the rise and fall for Iran in the aforementioned sports, wrestling and weightlifting as well as martial arts (taekwondo, karate and wushu) have adorned our medals table with glittering gold regularly during the past three Asian Games.
The results with 20, 21 and 20 gold medals in the past three rounds of the Games should serve as a reality check for the National Olympic Committee simply because we visibly seem to be making little or no progress.
Iran’s best rank in the history of the event was in 1974 during the Tehran Asian Games where we won 36 gold , 28 silver and 17 bronze honors and finished second after Japan.
Gold medals in fencing and aquatics in the 1974 games look out of reach now as Iran has never won the title in the two categories ever since.
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