Telling the athletes that being in their presence filled him with pride, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met India’s Asian Games medal-winners at the Major Dhyan Chand Stadium in New Delhi on Thursday.
The biggest success is to increase the prestige and respect of the Tri-colour. That is what you have done. “You have made 140 crore Indians proud.
And that is why your success isn’t just yours, but also of the crores of people in the country,” Modi said in his speech.
For the PM, the recent Asian Games were memorable for several reasons. Modi also touched upon archery’s golden highs, new records set in athletics, and the long-awaited medals in weightlifting and marathon. Medals in sports like MMA and soft tennis were signs that Indians are also making their mark in other sports. “We have big dreams.
Among them, he said, were both hockey teams winning gold, especially the women’s team ending a 44-year wait, and both cricket and kabaddi teams defending their titles from the Hangzhou edition.
“Today, India is rising in the kind of sports where we had no medals ever at the Asian Games,” said the PM. We also have a big self-belief of fulfilling them,” Modi said. “And that is why, I am saying with full confidence, that India will host a lot of big sports events.”
The PM was presented with a range of memorabilia – from a bow by 17-year-old recurve archer and twice gold medallist Kumkum Mohod, to a glove and golf ball by history-setter in golf Pranavi Urs, to a hockey stick by the women’s team. From India’s 85 medal winners, 38 were women, 11 of them gold medallists. Also present were a host of medallists in athletics, boxing and other individual sports, along with union sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya and other dignitaries. Modi especially congratulated the women athletes. “These medals are not just numbers.
They are a strong representation of the new India,” said Modi. In the audience sat the country’s medal winners, including members of both the hockey teams, the women’s cricket team scheduled to play Zimbabwe in a T20I in Raipur on Friday, and the men’s cricket team that played West Indies in a T20I in Hyderabad on Wednesday.
