India, Oct. 4 -- You can dissect India's 85-medal haul as you want. The simplest is perhaps -- 21 gold, 27 silver and 37 bronze -- with a fourth-place finish at the 2026 Asian Games. And despite it being India's second-best performance in Asiad history, the medal tally is bound to draw comparisons with the highs of the Hangzhou Games in 2023, where India won 18 more medals and seven more golds.

Yet, the 85 also reflected a more interesting figure -- 22 -- the number of podium finishes India had never achieved before at the Asian Games.

This included entirely new sports finding their footing -- with Suchika Tariyal's MMA bronze and Jay Meena's soft tennis bronze being India's first-ever Asian Games medals in those disciplines. There were...