India Completes a Kabaddi Double: Men's Team Beats Iran 40-34 for Gold

A few hours after India's women won kabaddi gold on Saturday, the men did the same, beating Iran 40-34 in their own final at the Tokai Citizens Gymnasium. It gave India two kabaddi golds on the same day.

It wasn't as comfortable as the scoreline from earlier in the tournament suggested it might be. Iran led 18-17 at half-time, and it took a defensive turn to swing it back India's way. Sumit Sangwan and Jaideep Dahiya combined for a super tackle on Ali Samadi, and Sumit later held up Zafar Danesh on his own, stopping two of Iran's better raiders when India needed it.

India had been untroubled up to that point. They beat Thailand 66-28 in the semi-final, 37-18 up at half-time with eight all-outs to Thailand's two. The final was a different match altogether.

Sunil Kumar captained the side, with Balwan Singh as head coach. It's India's ninth men's kabaddi gold in ten editions of the Games since 1990. The only edition they didn't win was 2018, when they lost to Iran in the semi-final and took bronze; they'd already beaten Iran for gold once since, 33-29 in the Hangzhou final.

The win takes India's Asian Games tally to 4 gold, 12 silver and 14 bronze — 30 medals in all, 10th on the table.