The upcoming 19th Asian Games, set to start from September 23, 2023 in Hangzhou, China will likely be an necessary occasion close to subsequent yr’s Paris Olympics for some sports activities. The continental occasion will act as an Olympic qualifier in some sports activities like archery, hockey and boxing, whereas Olympic qualification requirements can be breached in sports activities like athletics and swimming.

A complete of 15 Indians have certified for the 2024 Olympics thus far, in athletics and taking pictures.

Here’s a have a look at the opposite sports activities the place extra Asian quotas for the world’s greatest present may be secured by Indians from September 23 to October 8.

Boxing

The sport which doubtlessly provides essentially the most Olympic quota locations on the Asian Games is boxing. According to the brand new qualification tips from IOC, the Asian Games will function a direct qualifier for the Olympics, with as many as 34 Asian boxers qualifying on the idea of leads to Hangzhou.

There will likely be two quotas per class in males’s boxing, which signifies that the gold and silver medallists may also e book their 2024 Paris spots. The likes of Shiva Thapa, Nishant Dev and Deepak Bhoria will likely be eyeing these quotas.

In girls’s boxing, there will likely be 4 quotas on provide for each weight class besides the 66kg and the 75kg ones. Indian hopes will likely be closely invested on world champions Nikhat Zareen and Lovlina Borgohain, whereas Asian champion Parveen Hooda may also be anticipated to win a quota.

“I think we will have three to four boxers who will qualify for the Olympics from the Asian Games,” India’s boxing head coach CA Kuttappa told The Hindu earlier this year.

Archery

One other major individual sport which will offer Olympic quotas is recurve archery. There are quotas on offer for individual archers as well as the mixed team. There will not be quotas on offer for men’s and women’s teams, which will be decided at the Asian Championships in November,

The gold medal winner of the mixed recurve team event will get one quota at the Paris Olympics. Apart from this, two recurve archers per gender will book their spots, which means that the gold and silver medallists in the individual recurve archery events will qualify. Star archers like Dhiraj Bommadevara, Atanu Das and Bhajan Kaur will be aiming for these quotas on offer.

This is the second chance for Asian countries to book a spot at the Olympics after the World Championships last month, where recurve archers drew a blank despite a good show from the compound archers.

Sailing

Sailing is also one of the sports which will offer direct places for the Olympics. There will be different number of quotas for different disciplines – few categories will offer only one quota place for the gold medallist, whereas few categories will offer quotas for all medallists.

India will be sending a 16-member sailing contingent to the Asian Games.

Hockey

Possibly the sport where Olympic qualification is the primary agenda for the Indian teams, hockey will offer berths to the Olympics for the gold medal winners in both the men’s and women’s categories.

Ranked first in Asia, both the men’s and women’s teams are favourites to clinch the berths. The women’s team, however, have not won a gold medal at the Asian Games since 1982. Japan will be the main threat for both the teams, even though Malaysia showed recently they can pack a punch too in men’s hockey. In case the Indian teams cannot secure gold medals in hockey at the Asian Games, they will have to play Olympic qualification tournaments in Pakistan and Spain, which they would like to avoid.

Qualification Standards

There are various other sports which do not have direct quota places on offer but players can get quotas by touching the qualification mark set by IOC – like in athletics and swimming – where the qualification period is ongoing.

For example, swimmer Srihari Nataraj (PB 53.77s) will be looking to breach the 100m backstroke qualification standard of 53.74 seconds. If he reaches this timing, he will qualify for the Olympics irrespective of his rank at the Asian Games.

Similarly, in athletics, Tajinder Toor (PB 21.77m) will look to breach the Olympic qualification standard of 21.50m. While Toor did create a new Asian record earlier this year, his 21.77m throw had been before the qualification period started. The likes of Jeswin Aldrin and Kishore Jena will also have an eye on the Olympic standards.

Other sports: Few other sports like water polo, modern pentathlon and breaking have direct quota places on offer, but India does not have any representation in these sports.