A year out from breakdancing’s debut at the Paris Olympics, b-boys and b-girls competed in the continental showpiece for the first time, performing tricks to ear-splitting jams in front of a panel of judges and several thousand spectators.

Along with esports’ debut as a medal event in Hangzhou, organisers hope “breaking” can help attract young viewers turned off by traditional Games sports.

Cricket has returned to the Games with another audience in mind — the millions upon millions of fans in south Asia.

Debutants India thumped Bangladesh by nine wickets in the semi-finals of the T20 tournament but fans’ hopes for a gold medal showdown with bitter rivals Pakistan were crushed.

Gulbadin Naib’s Afghanistan restricted Pakistan to a modest total of 115 and chased it down with 13 balls to spare at the Zhejiang University of Technology ground.

Pakistan, who failed to medal in the women’s event won by India, have only bronze to play for against Bangladesh.

Only weeks after claiming the 102kg weightlifting world title in Saudi Arabia, China’s Liu Huanhua bulked up for the 109kg division and stunned Uzbekistan’s Olympic champion Akbar Djuraev.

Liu hoisted a combined 418kg to pip twice world champion Djuraev by a kilogram.

“Previously I had competed in 102kg so today I did not perform to my best,” said 22-year-old Liu.

“But the crowd was so enthusiastic that they lifted me up, and I had this driving force inside me.”

It was not the first big disappointment for Uzbekistan at the hands of the hosts.

Their canoe slalom silver medallist Anvar Klevleev was in line for gold in the men’s event with a total run time of 98.63 seconds.

But the gold ended up with home competitor Xie Yuancong who successfully appealed against a 50-second penalty for missing the third gate of the course.

The Uzbek soccer team were also thrashed 7-0 by China for the women’s bronze medal. Japan play North Korea for the gold later on Friday.

A second Saudi Arabian runner was banned for a positive doping test for darbepoetin, a blood-booster similar to erythropoietin (EPO).

Middle distance runner Wesam Nasser A Alfarsi, who finished last of 12 runners in the 3,000m steeplechase last Sunday, became the sixth athlete overall to be banned at the Games.

Turkmenistan’s Tejen Tejenov, who took silver in the men’s +90kg kurash event, became the first Hangzhou medallist to be banned for doping on Thursday.

The equestrian programme wrapped up, with Abdullah Al-Sharbatly trotting away with his sixth Asian Games gold for Saudi Arabia after winning the individual jumping title.

Al-Sharbatly also claimed a fourth team gold after titles at the 2006, 2010 and 2018 Games.

“I’m very proud … because I (was) in the lead by far as the best Saudi athlete with five golds. Now it’s six golds. Amazing,” said the 41-year-old, who was bullish on his chances at the Paris Olympics.

“I am expecting, and I hope, to win gold in Paris … Inshallah, I will do it.”

Three days after her 18th birthday, China’s Wu Shutong attacked late to snatch gold from Japan’s Airi Ebina in the 10km marathon swim at the Qiandao Lake course.

“Competing in the Hangzhou Asian Games is my gift for my birthday,” she said.

The Indian eventually won the Asiad gold thanks to getting 88.88 metres on his fourth registered effort. But before that he was trailing his compatriot and rival Kishore Jena and there was a danger he might lose the gold because of the confusion.

Chopra was second man to throw in the final. He launched his throw and it looked long, well over 85m, but his distance did not initially appear on the digital board and before the issue could be resolved the next athlete launched his throw.

Yet Chopra’s name was still being shown on the digital board and on the Games’ official online information and results service, as if he had not yet taken his first throw.

A strange delay ensued. Officials started engaging in discussions. Soon Chopra went over to speak to them to protest because he knew his was a “good throw”.

“I also don’t know what happened,” he told reporters. “I fight (protest my case) with them because it was a good throw. And I asked them what happened, what happened? I go there for six times.”

After several minutes, several officials on the field gathered around the area close to where Chopra’s javelin landed and prodded several areas with their feet.

“I wanted to understand what had happened,” he said.

“They kept looking for the mark but they didn’t find it. It felt like a great throw to me, I’ll watch the video later, I don’t know how much it was, but I’m told that it was really good.

“So I was a little disappointed because it was a good throw, and there was a good wind behind me as well.”

Chopra said that there may have been a technical problem or they may have not finished measuring his first throw when the next athlete made his first throw.

“They said they would let me have another first throw after that. I didn’t have any other choice as it was disturbing the other competitors too. It was windy and everyone was cooling down, so I said I’ll do my first throw again.”

“The rule is for six throws but I threw seven times.”

Neither Chopra nor his 75-year-old coach Klaus Bartonietz have seen this happen before in competition.

“We just noticed that no result, no result, because they took it out and measured again the other on… shit happens,” Bartonietz said.

“In the training results were promising so we know what he can do and he did it. But then they, with this other guy running in and just messed it up.

“They are also unhappy with this. It’s not good for their reputation” he said, referring to the officials.

Earlier this week in the women’s 100m hurdles final China’s Wu Yanni protested a false start she had been charged with, caused a long delay to the race and then chose to run anyway, though she was later disqualified.

On Saturday an athletics official suffered a broken leg and serious bleeding after being hit by a misthrown hammer.

Some 12,400 athletes from 45 nations are competing for 481 gold medals across a huge programme of 40 sports at the Games in the eastern Chinese city, which were delayed by a year due to COVID-19.

India’s gold came with the added bonus of a world record, beating the previous mark set by China’s men last month.

The Bangladesh women’s cricket team beat Pakistan in the bronze medal match to claim the country’s first Asian Games medal since 2014 at Incheon, South Korea.

They produced a strong performance in the field to restrict Pakistan to 64 for nine after the maximum 20 overs, a total they chased down to win in 18.2 overs.

Cricket, which has hopes of becoming an Olympic sport, returned to the Asian Games after being omitted from the last edition in Indonesia in 2018.

Bangladesh will host the next ICC Twenty20 Women’s World Cup next year.

Esports, which is huge in China, is a medal event at the Asian Games for the first time and the participation of Lee Sang-hyeok – known by his gaming handle ‘Faker’ – has given the competition’s profile a big boost.

The South Korean did not disappoint his legions of fans on Monday, helping his Korean team beat Kazakhstan 1-0 in one of the preliminary matches in the ‘League of Legends’ category.

Also on day two of competition, China picked up gold medals in skateboarding, women’s mountain biking, shooting and rowing, though Uzbekistan stole some of their thunder by pipping the hosts to gold in the women’s single skulls and men’s four.

Skateboarder Chen Ye, 15, upset his Japanese rivals to win the men’s park final. Japan’s Hinano Kusaki, also 15, beat two Chinese skaters to gold in the women’s category earlier.

China has pulled out all the stops to ensure a smooth event, its first major sporting competition since the country ended its “zero-COVID” policy in late 2022.

However, diplomatic tensions have undermined the organisers’ narrative of a harmonious gathering of nations, with India furious over a visa issue that meant three of its athletes were unable to compete in wushu, the Chinese martial art.

One, sent from Afghanistan where women are now banned by the Taliban from participating in sports, consists of about 130 all-male athletes, who will participate in 17 different sports, including volleyball, judo and wrestling, Atel Mashwani, a Taliban-appointed spokesman for the Afghanistan’s Olympic Committee, told The Associated Press.

Another, competing under the black, red and green flag of the elected government the Taliban toppled in 2021, is drawn from the diaspora of Afghan athletes around the world, and includes 17 women, according to Hafizullah Wali Rahimi, the president of Afghanistan’s National Olympic Committee from before the Taliban took over.

Rahimi, who now works from outside Afghanistan but is still recognized by many countries as its official representative on Olympic matters, told reporters at the team’s official arrival ceremony late Thursday that the athletes are there for the love of sports.

“We want to be keeping the sports completely out of the politics so the athletes can freely, inside and outside their country, do their sports activity and development,” he said.

Rahimi’s contingent at the welcome ceremony was entirely male, but he said the women were on their way, consisting of a volleyball team that have been training in Iran, cyclists from Italy, and a representative for athletics from Australia.

He did not respond to an emailed request on Friday seeking more details.

The games official opening ceremony is on Saturday.

Although the Taliban promised a more moderate rule than during their previous period in power in the 1990s, they have imposed harsh measures since seizing Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO forces were pulling out after two decades of war.

They have barred women from most areas of public life such as parks, gyms and work and cracked down on media freedoms. They have banned girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade, and prohibited Afghan women from working at local and non-governmental organizations. The ban was extended to employees of the United Nations in April.

The measures have triggered a fierce international uproar, increasing the country’s isolation at a time when its economy has collapsed and worsening a humanitarian crisis.

Rahimi said that the previous government had been working hard to increase women’s participation in sport since the previous Taliban regime, and that it had increased to 20%.

“We hope it comes back, of course,” he said. “Not only the sport, we hope that they’ll be back allowed to schools and education, because that’s the basic rights of a human.”

The three athletes, competing as wushu fighters from the state of Arunachal Pradesh, were issued stapled visas instead of stamped ones, according to India’s foreign ministry.

India does not accept stapled visas as valid. Wei Jizhong, chairman of Olympic Council of Asia’s ethics committee, told reporters that China did not refuse entry to the athletes.

The practice of issuing visas on loose sheets of paper has been seen as China’s way of questioning India’s sovereignty over Arunachal Pradesh, which is situated near the border between the two nations.

In protest, India’s sports minister, Anurag Thakur, cancelled his visit to the games, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“The Chinese government has never recognised the so-called Arunachal Pradesh, and the South Tibet region is part of China’s territory,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters on Friday, responding to a question about the Indian athletes.

The Indian Olympic Association and the Wushu Association of India did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Beijing has issued stapled visas to residents of India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, claiming it to be part of China’s southern Tibet. New Delhi vociferously rejects the claim, saying Arunachal Pradesh has always been part of India.

China and India have been uneasy neighbours for decades after a war over their disputed Himalayan frontier in 1962. Relations nosedived in 2020 after a border clash in which 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed.

This year, China ratcheted up tensions by giving Chinese names to 11 locations in Arunachal Pradesh.

With more than 12,000 athletes from 45 nations competing across a programme of 40 sports, the 19th Asian Games opens in Hangzhou on Saturday after a year’s delay because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dinesh Kumar – won 17 gold, one silver, and five bronze medals in variety of competitions in India and abroad. But his career came to halt in 2014, when his car collided with a truck near Samana.

He was shown pushing a cart titled ‘Dinesh Kulfi’ in a video posted by ANI news agency. The former boxer is trying to settle his family debts as it kept increasing in lakhs.

“Right now, I have no hope that the government will provide me with monetary aid or employment. None of the political parties that have been in power since my accident have found me worth helping. I want to let the government know that I am wasting away here even though I am still a good sportsperson,” Kumar said.

“I want to help my family pay off the debts they accumulated trying to further my career and then get back into the boxing ring,” he added.

Speaking to media, his elder brother said, “Dinesh won many laurels for India at competitions across the world, and our father took loan after loan to send him to England and other countries. He is lakhs in debt now, and that’s why we are in this terrible state.”

“There’s no help coming from the government, and nobody even wants to know how we are doing. Things would have been very different if this had happened to someone else,” he added.

His former coach, Vishnu Bhagwan, has kept urging Government to help Kumar with monetary aid.

He said, “Dinesh was very agile as a boxer. He won many medals in the junior category, but is now forced to sell kulfis on the streets because of a tragic accident.”

However, Kumar boasted that he has not lost touch with boxing, and to keep his skills active, he teaches free boxing classes to children of a slum area.

“Many of the children I mentored have reached the international arena,” he enthused.

Hundreds of sportsmen in India end up doing menial jobs as Government lacks proper encouragement and support except Cricket, that has eventually made India backwards in top-class games despite talent is second name of the country.