Asian Games
Asian Games 2026: Indian rowers switched out of their events without notice
Indian rowers say they were moved between events just two days before competition at the Asian Games, leaving athletes frustrated and uncertain.
Balraj Panwar
Imagine you train hard for seven months for an event you want to compete in at the Asian Games, sacrificing everything else in your life.
Now imagine being told two days before the competition starts that, “Hey, you’ll not compete in event A that you have been training for, but in event B.”
That’s the current plight of the Indian rowers at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya. Balraj Panwar, Arvind Singh, Vipul Ghurde, Saurav Kumar, Navdeep Singh, Kulwinder Singh, Salman, and Satman are all in the same boat, pun intended.
The rowers were told about this switch on Monday after their training. Rowing events start on Wednesday.
Panwar, an Olympian, was shunted from Quadruple Sculls to Singles Sculls. Arvind was sent from singles to quadruple.
Saurav went from being in the main team to reserve, while Vipul was switched from men’s pair to coxless four.
Elsewhere, Salman and Satnam were moved from quadruple sculls to doubles sculls, whereas Navdeep and Kulwinder were sent from doubles to quadruple.
Jasmail Singh, who had been a reserve, was brought into the coxless four. Nitin Kumar and Jaswinder Singh, who had been part of the coxless four, were moved into the men’s pair
“We don’t know what to do,” one of them told The Bridge from Japan, just over 24 hours before the event begins.
“We are all depressed and haven’t had anything to eat because of the situation,” they added.
The affected players allege that the decision was taken by the federation and senior coach Gurdarshan Singh and that they were only informed after the entries were sent.
When the players protested, they were told, “The entries have already been sent. It can’t be changed.”
“We just want to compete in the event we trained for,” they pleaded.
“It takes months to get in sync with your partner, and here they are expecting us to work it out and win medals with generic, ‘Tum kar loge [you can do it]’ encouragement,” they added.
The Rowing Federation of India, meanwhile, maintained that the decision was taken to better India’s medal chances, given the recent performances and because the competition days have been reduced.
Rowing was earlier supposed to be held from 20 to 24 September, but will now be held only on 23rd and 24th September. This is because of the Typhoon Dujuan warning in the region.
As for the rowers, instead of getting a good rest, they will now spend their nights sleepless in the hope that there’s a change in the hearts of those who took the call and if there is, the Asian Games officials will allow them to go back to their original events.