History Scripted: Satwik-Chirag Emerges as 1st Indian Pair to win Gold at Asia Championships
PM Modi congratulated them for achieving the feat
New Delhi: India clinched the gold medal in the Asian Championship after long 58 years. Star doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty on Sunday ended a 58-year drought and became the first Indian pair since Dinesh Khanna to win a gold medal at the Asia Badminton Championships in Dubai. PM Modi himself has congratulated them for achieving the feat.
The World Championships 2022 bronze medalist pair made a stunning comeback from down in the first game to see off Malaysian pair of Ong Yew Sin and Teo Yee 16-21, 21-17, 21 -19. Prior to this, only Dinesh Khanna had won gold for India in this championship when he defeated Thailand's Sangob Ratansuran in the men's singles final at Lucknow in 1965.
India's previous best performance in men's doubles at the Asian Championships was in 1971 when Dipu Ghosh and Raman Ghosh clinched a bronze. Satwik and Chirag, who won the Swiss Open Super 300 title in Basel, showed tremendous determination as they never gave up after losing the first game and won the second and third games 7-13 and 11-15 to win India's first gold medal. This was the second title of the season for Satwik and Chirag.