Army Chief Bipin Rawat congratulates entire Asian Games contingent for success

09/06/2018

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Indian Army Chief Bipin Rawat is impressed with the performance of Indian players at the Asian Games Jakarta and Palembang and congratulated the whole contingent for their good work. The army represented contingent accumulated 11 medals out of the total 69 achieved by Indian players.

India's performance at the Asian Games 2018 has been considered the best so far. Out of the 69 medals, India won 15 Gold which was the joint highest with India's 1951 campaign. In the year 2014, India had accumulated 11 gold medals out of the total 57, while in 2010 there were 64 medals, including 14 gold.

Further, India has secured medals in sports, which had not been a very assured category. The sailing squad and the equestrian squad also returned with medals. Players like Manjit Singh, Dutee Chand, Swapna Barman, Vinesh Phogat, Bajrang Punia have all given remarkable performances.

However, Bipin Rawat mentioned that the performance of the army players in Asiad 2018 was just a trailer of what is to come in the Tokyo Olympics. Overall, he congratulated all the players, who had performed remarkably in the quadrennial event.

“I want to congratulate the entire contingent and I am not just talking about the medal winners. Some won medals and some did not perform up to the mark but I am hopeful that they will continue to work hard. Asian Games was just a trailer and you will get to watch the full movie during Olympics. That’s our endeavour for Mission Olympics,” Rawat told PTI.

“We had 73 representatives of the Indian Army which included 66 athletes and seven coaches, who were a part of the Indian contingent. We won 11 medals including 4 gold and 4 silver and 3 bronze medals. I expected even more but I am not disheartened. I know that they will train harder, be more determined to win many more laurels for the country,” he added.

Rawat also shared with the media that many athletes approached him to ask the army to increase international exposure. Rawat also acknowledged the Indian equestrian team, who returned with two silver medals.

“They spoke to me about need for international exposure. They want to compete with world’s best athletes on a regular basis, have access to state-of-the-art training abroad. This exposure boosts an athlete’s confidence. We have seen our athletes perform well at home but at times fail due to stage fright in overseas conditions,” he said.

“There are lot of events where we haven’t won medals earlier but during this edition we have won medals. We have never won any medals in Equestrian after 1982 Delhi Asiad. This time we won two silver medals in the Equestrian.

“We are in process of buying new horses. The 61st Cavalry of Indian Army has been tasked to buy new horses from foreign land. We will buy good horses so that riders can train here. However we would also see to it that they can train in foreign countries,” Rawat added.

As per Rawat, Army Sports Institute, Army Rowing Node, Army Yatching Node, Army Equestrian Node, and Army Marksman Unit will be the five sports unit of the army that will be working vigorously towards making ‘Mission Olympics’ a big success.

“All our nodes are working on the Mission Olympic programme. But we are not working in isolation. We are getting a lot of support from the Sports Ministry. We have some fields where we specialise — like boxing, shooting and rowing. These are some of our specialities. We would continue to work with sports ministry,” he said.

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