What was most beautiful about the women’s kabaddi final in Asian Games?

Kabaddi is an interesting sport with growing popularity in more and more countries beyond its main area of origin in South Asia and neighboring countries like Iran. The International Kabaddi Federation has 31 member countries already on its rolls and is in the process of efforts to extend this to as many as 80 countries. What has been particularly enthusing is the spread of kabaddi among women and their regular participation in international sports events, which also strengthens the belief that once women get the opportunity to join more and more sports keeping in view their cultural norms, the chances of participation and progress of women in sports increases in many countries. The final of the women’s kabaddi event in the ongoing 2026 Asian Games in Japan was contested on September 26 between the teams of India and Iran. In a closely contested and well played match that attracted a lot of interest, the Indian team won, thereby getting the gold medal while the Iranian team received the silver medal.

As an Indian, I am of course very happy that the Indian team won the gold medal, but I am also almost equally happy that overcoming many difficulties, the brave team of Iran could reach the final and get the silver medal. This team had to be assembled under great difficulties in wartime conditions and faced many challenges in their training. The team had to change the place of training several times to train in safe conditions. What is more, many team members were under stress due to concerns regarding the safety of their family members or other loved ones. Thus, what is very encouraging for the spirit of sports is that these women players could overcome so many problems to not just come to the Asian Games but also reach the final after defeating several strong contenders, and also gave a very spirited performance in the finals which they lost only by the smallest margin, maintaining their chances of winning even this match until the very last stage of the game. The victory margin in favor of India was 37-34.

While all this is very heartwarming for the spirit of sports and for the Asian Games, there was something even more beautiful about the final of the women’s kabaddi event at these Asian Games.

What I found most beautiful for the spirit of sports was that considering the problems in training under wartime conditions and other related problems such as lack of adequate big match practice (which was particularly acute for the Iran team as most of its members are young and new, lacking adequate international exposure), India played host to the Iran women’s kabaddi team in August, just before the Asian Games started, This allowed the team to have adequate practice under conducive conditions before the coming big games. I think it was very nice to see a country hosting the main rival team for help in training just before a major and prestigious sports event. While India is the top kabaddi team at the moment, Iran is a close second and in fact had, in fact, won the gold in Jakarta after defeating India, also winning medals at other games. So it was really nice to see the two main rival teams sharing training and practice just before the big event in true spirit of sports.