Asiad '26: Leaner Indian contingent produces fewer golds but better return-per-medal

In late August, the Sports Ministry maintained that the qualification criteria for the Asian Games, put into place a year ago, would not change despite criticism. “The idea, from the very beginning, was to send a lean contingent. The criteria was announced a year ago, and everyone had the time to figure it out and qualify,” a Sports Ministry source told TimesofIndia.com back then. It was made clear that the objective was to have a contingent with only realistic medal contenders making the trip to Aichi-Nagoya."Let’s take an example. If somebody has to run inside 10 seconds to be a contender for a medal in the 100m event, should we send an athlete who clocks 15 seconds? We have set the criteria that if an athlete is in the top six in Asia, we will select him or her, otherwise not.