India, Sept. 30 -- As India's women 4x400m relay quartet of Kiran Pahal, M R Poovamma, Prachi Chaudhary and Vithya Ramraj celebrated, there was a collective sigh of relief for the country's athletics fraternity and fans. It took the second last event on the roster for India to finally earn a gold medal in athletics at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.

The last event too brought a lot of hope in rainy Nagoya. The men's 4x400m relay team were, after all, defending champions. But with a time of 3:01.61 minutes at the Mizuho Park Athletics Stadium, the team only managed a bronze. The timings of winners Japan (3:00.75) and second-placed Qatar (3:00.93) showed the Indian quartet lagged well behind.

In many ways, that final race was symbolic of In...