Asian Games : The Sino-Indian war of 2010

It won’t take a genius to guess , which of the above mentioned nations are better at sports. They may be potential super powers as far as world affairs and economies are concerned but on the sports field, one is the most massive under achiever in the world and the other already on the top.But the Chinese can’t top us at everything, right?. Absolutely,We now look at some sports where we can beat or at least challenge our Chinese counterparts at Asian Games 2010.

1) Archery

Deepika Kumari

China is known to be one of the best in the world in almost all archery events. This can be gauged by the fact they won the individual women’s archery gold, men’s and women’s teams won bronze and silver respectively. India too has a strong men’s and women’s team that on their day can upset the best. The Individual challenge would be led by Jayanta Talukdar,Rahul Bannerjee and Mangal Singh Champia in the men’s individual recurve section while Commonwealth games gold medallist Deepika Kumari would be the best medal bet in the women’s individual section. Performances have been good with the men’s recurve team shooting a best of 221 at the commonwealth games while the Chinese men’s team shot a best of 222 for bronze at the Beijing Olympics. With Rahul Bannerjee and Deepika Kumari winning their respective sections at the commonwealth games one can hope for a fightin performance in all archery events at the asiad.

2) Badminton

Saina Nehwal

There is little doubt that the Chinese are the best shuttlers in the world but a match up between our very own Saina Nehwal and world rank 1 Wang Xin would be interesting. The two have met twice , with the Chinese winning both .But a rising star of Chinese badminton and current world champion Wang Lin has been beaten thrice by Saina in 4 meetings. Hoping for Saina to beat even the 2 chinese ahead of her in the world rankings is pretty fair given her results against some Chinese shuttlers and recent form.

3) Chess

The absence of Vishwanathan Anand in the 2010 Asiad may just be the kind of break individual Chinese chess players would have been looking for.With an average rating of 2703 to 2645 the Chinese men hold quite an advantage over their Indian counterparts. The Indian girls have been in good form but lost to china in the recently concluded chess Olympiad. But with Koneru Humpy, one of the world’s top women chess players and defending asian games champion the prospect of a gold in the women’s individual section looks pretty good

4) Boxing

India would be hoping for a good haul from one of it’s best displines in recent times. With boxer’s like Vijender, Suranjoy and Akhil Kumar (who can beat the best on his day like at the 2008 olympics). With the Chinese lacking good boxers in all these divisions – Flyweight(Suranjoy),Middleweight(Vijender) and bantamweight (Akhil) , we should be able to get ahead of them easily .

5) Hockey

Rajpal Singh

After a shocking end to a glorious commonwealth games campaign, the Indian men would be looking to extract revenge on the very team that effectively knocked them out of competing in the 2008 olympics. The Chinese team is known to be fast, skilful and deadly with penalty corners. However the Indian men have been in good form with the Chinese lately and toyed with them (4-1) at the last champions challenge.

6) Shooting

The most keen contest in shooting would be seen at the 10m air rifle competition with defending Olympic champ Abhinav Bindra and World Record holder Gagan Narang competing with Zhu Qinan , Gold and Silver medals at the 2004 and 2008 games respectively. The double trap challenge would be led by Ronjan Sodhi and young gun Asher Noria against Hu Binyuan (Bronze at the 2008 olympics). Unfortunately, India probably won’t see a lot of medals in the pistol section where Jaspal Rana ruked the roost 4 years ago.

7) Rugby Sevens

Surprised? Well, the their last meeting india decimated the Chinese rugby team 94-5 in HSBC Asian five nations tournament in Delhi. Riding on those results India could upset the Chinese in the faster version of the game this time around.

8 ) Wrestling

In the absence of Sushil Kumar, the other wrestlers representing India have quite a task at hand. Without Sushil the contest between India and China looks pretty even. With talented wrestlers like Rajender Kumar who reached the quarter finals at the2010 world championships in moscow and finished second at the 2010 asian championships , India would be fancying their chances against their larger neighbour.

9) Tennis

Somdev Devvarman will spearhead the indian challenge in the men’s singles event at the 2010 asiad. With no chinese competitor near him in the rankings and some famous victories against players ranked much higher, Somdev should see us through. The going will be much tougher for Sania Mirza as she has two high ranked chinese competitors to contend with in Li Na and Zheng Jie.