India returned from Aichi-Nagoya with 85 medals, including 21 gold, finishing fourth in Asia. While the total fell from the record 107 medals won in Hangzhou, the ranking stayed the same. Many debutants showed promise, and women athletes led the way, winning 11 gold medals to the men’s seven.
The medals table is the most obvious measure of success at a multi-sport Games. But there are also other numbers, and other stories, behind it.
India returned from Aichi-Nagoya with 85 medals, including 21 gold, finishing fourth in Asia. The first two numbers are down significantly from the record 107 medals and 28 gold India won in Hangzhou, but its ranking remained unchanged. For a country whose sporting ambitions have grown exponentially in recent years, this should invite introspection.
But there were other numbers in Aichi-Nagoya worth examining.
Athletics, India's biggest contributor, returned with 24 medals. Though only one was gold, against six in Hangzhou, there were also five National Records and 11 Personal Bests. For years, there was a sneer reserved for Indian athletes who failed to deliver their best at the Asian Games and the Olympics.
A medal is partly determined by the quality of opposition on a particular day, while a Personal Best measures an athlete against his or her own ceiling. To produce one on the biggest stage, under the greatest pressure, matters. Do it consistently and medals usually follow.
But India must also judge its Asian Games performances by a more demanding question of how well they will travel to the Olympic stage.
Archery offered the most compelling answer. Youngsters Kumkum Mohod and Chikitha Taniparthi went toe-to-toe with South Korean, Japanese and Chinese archers and beat them. Considering the extraordinary depth and pedigree of these nations, particularly Korea, these were not merely performances good enough to win at the Asian Games. They were of Olympic standard.
And out of India's 310 Asian Games debutants, 83 are returning with medals - 43 women and 40 men. Athletics had 14 debutant medallists and shooting 13. And remarkably, all nine archery debutants won medals.
The question after every Asian Games should not just be how many medals India won. It should also be what India has discovered for the Olympic cycle.
And increasingly, these answers are coming from the women.
Women and men won 38 medals each, but women won 11 gold medals to the men's seven. Add the nine mixed-events medals, and women were involved in well over half of India's medal-winning performances.
The women's hockey team ended a 44-year wait for Asian Games gold. Pranavi Urs broke new ground in golf. Neeru Dhanda won two gold and a silver on her Asian Games debut, while 17-year-old Kumkum, another debutant, finished with an individual and team gold along with a mixed-team silver.
But none of this should disguise the uncomfortable part of the report card. Shooting fell from seven gold to three, while badminton, for long a medal staple for India at any Games, managed a solitary bronze. Tennis returned without a medal for the first time in four decades. And, most significantly, the gap to Asia's three major sporting powers remains enormous as China finished with 169 gold, Japan 83 and South Korea 39.
For a nation hoping to host the Olympics in 2036, the fourth place in Asia shows that India's recent sporting gains are not yet deep or secure enough to make progress inevitable.
But neither should these 85 medals be read simply as a step backward.
Aichi-Nagoya was, in many ways, a Games of regression and renewal. There were fewer medals and fewer golds, but National Records, Personal Bests, five Olympic qualifications, historic breakthroughs and a substantial group of first-time medallists also came through in these Games.
The next four years cannot, therefore, be another chase for a three-digit Asian Games medal tally. The more important task is to identify which of these athletes and performances can survive the much harsher examination of the Olympic arena, and then put the coaching, competition and resources behind them to make that possible.
Aichi-Nagoya showed India how much ground remains to be covered. But it also offered some compelling clues about who might cover it.