New Delhi: Stanislav Lapidus is an angry man these days. Ever since the Indian shooters performed below par at the Asian Games, the rifle coach has been complaining about how the euphoria over the Commonwealth Games success played a role behind the near-disastrous show at the Guangzhou shooting range.

“There was hardly any time left for serious training after the CWG,” said the Kazakh trainer. “Too many felicitation functions caused the trouble. The fans should realise the competition at the Asian Games is tougher and it is difficult to peak twice in a season,” he said.

There was no reason to doubt Lapdius’ claim, but India’s overall performance at the Asian Games, till date, has clearly demonstrated that the haul 101-medal haul in CWG last month was not a true picture of its actual strength in the international arena.

Out of the 38 gold medals that India bagged at in Delhi, 26 came in shooting (14), wrestling (10) and badminton (2). Unfortunately, in all these disciplines, India have come a cropper at the Asian Games, winning just one gold so far through double trapper Ronjan Sodhi.

“It’s time we put India’s medal count in the CWG in the right perspective,” said a senior Indian Olympic Association (IOA) official, who, fearing backlash, did not wish to be named.

“For nearly a week we did not manage to win even one gold medal in the Asian Games. When we finally won two, both came in non-CWG events, billiards (Pankaj Advani) and rowing (Bajrang Lal). It shows that several of the medals that we won last month came against relatively weak opposition and did not reflect our true standard,” he said.

“Competition in many disciplines in CWG was bit low. There were many absentees and we also had the advantage of fielding a large contingent,” the official pointed out.

The CWG success also raised false hopes. The sports ministry, on the eve of the Asian Games, went on record saying India could expect winning something between 74 and 101 medals. So upbeat was the mood that the IOA secretary general Randhir Singh said, he would not be surprised if India won more than 80 medals.

In reality, on 12th day of competition in Guangzhou, India remain at the overall tenth place with 46 medals and are working hard to match their 2006 Doha performance of 53 medals. However, with seven gold medals, and kabaddi and boxing medals yet to come, India still stand a chance of managing to surpass their 2006 tally of 10 gold.

Rifle ace Gagan Narang felt it would be wrong to compare India’s Asian Games performance with CWG. “We peaked during the CWG, which was held on our own soil and, naturally, we were eager to do our best. To Chinese athletes, Asian Games is like what CWG was to us. They went all out to outshine others,” he said.

Agreed, but Chinese probably would have done the same at any other venue. In Doha, they won 316 medals with 166 of them coming in the form of gold. In Beijing Olympics, China won 100 medals, including 51 gold. On the brighter side, Indians have reasons to rejoice for winning medals in gymnastics, swimming and wushu.

As 1986 medal winner Khazan Singh described Virdhwal Khade’s 50m butterfly bronze as “historic”, in track and field, Preeja Sredharan and Sudha Singh have proved sceptics wrong, who said weak field was the reason behind India’s success in CWG athletics.

To add to it, five pugilists have made the title round for the first time in Asian Games. “We didn’t face any problem in peaking twice in a short span,” said chief coach GS Sandhu. “If you work hard throughout the season, anything is possible,” he added.