Sarvesh Kushare wins Asian Games high-jump silver, ending India’s 56-year wait

Sarvesh Anil Kushare won silver in the men’s high jump at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on September 27, 2026, giving India its first medal in the event for 56 years. His best clearance of 2.25 metres matched the winning height, but a difference in attempts separated silver from gold.

Fu Chao-hsuan of Chinese Taipei cleared 2.25 metres on his first attempt to take the title. Kushare cleared it on his second attempt and finished runner-up. South Korea’s Woo Sang-hyeok took bronze at 2.22 metres. Kushare could not clear the next height, 2.28 metres, leaving the medals to be decided by the jumps already completed.

Why this silver is a milestone

The long wait belongs specifically to India’s men’s high jump at the Asian Games. Before Kushare, the country’s most recent medal in that event was Bhim Singh’s bronze at the 1970 Bangkok Games. Bhim Singh had also won gold in 1966, while Ajit Singh Balla won gold in 1954. Kushare’s silver is therefore not India’s first Asian Games men’s high-jump medal; it is the first since 1970.

That distinction matters. Calling the result India’s first high-jump medal would overlook earlier men’s medallists and medals won by Indian women in the event. Calling it a breakthrough for Indian athletics without qualification would also blur a more precise achievement. India has a long Asian Games athletics medal history. Kushare’s result ends a drought in one particular event.

It is a meaningful return to the podium nonetheless. High jump is decided not only by the greatest height an athlete clears but, when competitors are tied, by how they reached it. In Nagoya, Kushare and Fu both got over 2.25 metres. Fu needed one attempt at that height; Kushare needed two. That narrow margin made Kushare’s silver no less decisive as a result for India, even though it denied him gold.

From fourth place to the podium

Kushare had come close at the previous Asian Games, held in Hangzhou in 2023. He cleared 2.26 metres there—one centimetre higher than his medal-winning mark in Nagoya—but finished fourth. The comparison shows why a jump’s height alone does not tell the whole story: placing depends on the field and on how the competition unfolds.

He arrived at the 2026 Games with a higher personal benchmark, having cleared 2.31 metres at India’s national inter-state championships earlier in the year to set a national record. Nagoya was not a repeat of that record-breaking performance. It was a championship final in which 2.25 metres, cleared under pressure, was enough for a medal. The silver added to the men’s high-jump silver he won at the 2026 Commonwealth Games.

Kushare’s finish also came amid other Indian athletics medals on September 27. Ancy Sojan won silver in the women’s long jump, while Parul Chaudhary took bronze in the women’s 3,000-metre steeplechase. Those results provide context for India’s day at the track, but each has its own sporting significance. Kushare’s historical marker remains the 56-year gap in the Asian Games men’s high jump.

For India, the achievement is best stated plainly: a silver medal at 2.25 metres, won by the narrowest of margins behind an athlete who cleared the same height, and the country’s first podium finish in this event since Bhim Singh’s bronze in 1970.