Wushu athlete Jinnat wins historic Asian Games bronze for Bangladesh

Jinnat Akter has ended Bangladesh's 40-year wait for an individual Asian Games medal, winning bronze in the women's 52kg sanda event at the Aichi-Nagoya Games in Japan.

The Bangladesh Army wushu athlete's historic run came to an end in Wednesday's semi-final, where she faced China's Wu Di. Having reached the last four, Jinnat had already secured at least a bronze under the Games' wushu regulations.

The medal puts Jinnat in a select piece of Bangladesh's Asian Games history. Before her, the country's only individual medal had come in 1986, when boxer Mosharraf Hossain won bronze in the men's light-heavyweight division at the Seoul Games. Jinnat's achievement therefore brings the curtain down on a four-decade wait for another individual podium finish.

Jinnat's route to the podium was an unusual one. She received a bye in the opening round before advancing from the quarter-final when Indonesia's Tisara Dya Florentina was disqualified for failing to make the required weight. With 16 competitors in the 52kg category, the four semi-finalists were guaranteed medals.

The Netrakona-born fighter has been a dominant force on the domestic circuit since entering the national championship in 2019. She has won seven gold medals and has never finished second in the national competition.

More remarkably, Aichi-Nagoya is her first international competition. She has now walked away from her international debut with an Asian Games medal, a remarkable introduction to the big stage.

"I was mentally prepared to fight. The bout did not happen. But the medal has been secured. I cannot express in words how happy I am," Jinnat said from Japan.

For Bangladesh, her bronze is more than another entry on the medal table. It is a milestone that closes one long chapter and opens another for the country's individual sport.