The Indian women's team beat Iran 31-21 for their second successive kabaddi gold medal at the Asian Games 2014 on Friday, while the men had to stop an inspired Iran in the final to eventually prevail in a nail-biter 27-25.
The Indian women had won the top prize in Guangzhou four years ago -- the first time women's kabaddi was introduced at the Asiad.
India didn't have it easy and were made to work hard for the win by Iran, their only real competition in the tournament.
A neck and neck start saw both teams defend extremely well. But the Indian defence came out on top to exact 13 outs, including two 'lona' points, that gave them a 15-11 lead after the first half.
Iran, in contrast, had just eight outs and three bonus points. They failed to get even a single 'lona' point.
India's supremacy started to show in the second half as they slowly started increasing the gap.
It was again the Indian defenders who stole the show and registered 14 outs and two more 'lona' points as Iran failed to make an improvement to their first half effort and had to settle for the silver.
"We knew we might face them in the final," captain Tejaswini Bai said. "They are a very aggressive side and we wanted to keep a big lead right through. We succeeded in our gameplan."
The Indian men's team, who have dominated the Asiad, winning all the previous six gold medals since kabaddi's inclusion in 1990, were given a real scare by Iran, when they went down 21-13 at halftime.
However, the men found their rhythm and defence in the second period, picking up eight straight quickfire points to level the match, before showing just enough strength and tactical nous to see off the plucky Iranians, who yet again had to be satisfied with the silver.
"It was tougher than we expected.," said India skipper Rakesh Kumar. "Iran are a good team, but we made some mistakes initially and fell behind, before recovering."
