Asian Games 2018: Indian women loses to Iran in Kabaddi final; settles for silver

Two-time winners and defending champions India suffered yet another heartbreak losing 24-27 in the Kabaddi finals of the 18^th Asian Games in Jakarta on Friday.

Emulating their male counterparts, who kicked the Indian men out in the Kabaddi semi-finals yesterday, the Iranian women broke the India women’s resilience today pull-off a thrilling comeback and clinch the gold.

The Iranian women looked pumped up after their men compatriot’s famous victory and matched India move on move in both attacks and defence, but their might proved to be feeble in-front of India, who raced to a 3-7 lead in the opening minutes of the match.

Also Read: Asian Games 2018: India suffers shock defeat to Iran in Kabaddi semi-final; fails to bring gold first time in history

But Iran would not remain bogged down and soon fought back to reduce the deficit to just on point at 6-7 after tackling Randeep Kaur, India’s best raider.

Randeep though made amends on return to the turf and took a two-point raid to increase India’s lead to 13-8. But other failed to complement as Iran ended the first half just two points behind.

Then starting at 11-13, Iran scored six consecutive points to surge 17-13 ahead also inflicting an all-out on the Indians. They led 24-21 with just one and half minutes to go, Indian raider Sakshi Kumari pulled the reigning champions back with a three-point back. But Iran held from 24-25, to eventually win 27-24 and clinch the gold.

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It was their double trump over the Kabaddi powerhouse, with both of Iran’s men and women’s contingent defeating India en-route to their success.

The men’s team a night ago had walked-off to a dominating 27-18 victory over the seven-time champions’ Indian men’s team, making it the first time since the game was introduced at the Asiad in 1990 that an Indian team will not return with the gold medal.

With the victory, the Iranian men’s team have qualified for their third successive Asian final and will start as favourites against South Korea, another team to have defeated India this competition.

Iran has finished as the silver medal winners in the last two editions after losing to India in the Kabaddi finals.