Rowers clinch two silver as India pick up three medals

S S Ramaswamy
Guangzhou, Nov 18 (PTI) The Indian rowers provided an
unexpected boost to the country's medal hunt in the 16th Asian
Games with two silver medals but poor form continued to haunt
the fancied shooters with Gagang Narang flopping yet again as
India slipped to the 12th position on the sixth day of
competitions here Thursday.
Apart from the silver-winning feat of the rowers, shooter
Vijay Kumar bagged a bronze medal and Paramjeet Samota assured
himself of at least a bronze after punching his way into the
semifinals of super heavyweight on yet another mediocre day
for India's large contingent.
With the addition of two silvers and a bronze, India took
their medals tally to one gold, seven silver and eight bronze
but the failure to win the coveted gold has resulted in a
continuous slide in the position on the table in the last few
days.
India, who found themselves in thfe 11th position on the
medal rostrum Wednesday, climbed down by one rung to the 12th
spot.
China maintained their supremacy atop the table with a
whopping tally of 109-47-46 while South Korea (37-30-42) and
Japan (21-45-38) also hung on to their second and third
position respectively.
Tennis star Sania Mirza had a trouble-free day as she
sailed into the pre-quarterfinals of the women's singles with
a straight-set demolition of Hong Kong's Chan Wing Yau Venise
while the racqueters got off to a good start with both men's
and women's team progressing to the quarterfinals of the
squash singles event.
On the gloomier side, the Indian challenge in table
tennis ended with Achanta Sharath Kamal and Anthony Amalraj
bowing out in the pre quarterfinals of the men's singles
event. It was a similar story in men's singles badminton with
Arvind Bhatt crashing out out in the pre-quarterfinals.
It was the men's rowing four team of Anil Kumar, Saji
Thomas, Ranjit Singh and Jenil Krishnan which began the silver
collection as they completed the distance of 2000m in 6:16.79,
behind China (6:06.40). Uzbekistan won bronze with a timing of
6:22.70.
In the men's lightweight four event final, the Indian
quartet of Lokesh Kumar, Manjeet Singh, Rajesh Kumar Yadav and
Satish Joshi finished second with a timing of 6:13.32, behind
Japan who clocked 6:10.14. Hong Kong won the bronze, clocking
6:14.84.
After three barren days at the Aoti shooting range,
Vijay Kumar notched up his second and India's fifth medal in
shooting by bagging a bronze in men's 25m center fire pistol
but Commonwealth Games hero Narang missed out on a bronze by a
whisker in 50m rifle 3 positions.

Vijay shot 583 (290+293) to finish third behind South
Korea's Park Byung Taek who scored 586 (290+296) and Liu
Yadong of China who fired 585 (290+295).
The other two Indians in fray in the same event, Omkar
Singh and Harpreet Singh finished eighth and 32nd respectively
with scores of 580 and 563. This is Vijay's second medal in
shooting, having won a bronze in 10m air pistol individual
event.
Narang, who gave the country big hopes on the opening day
of the competitions with a double silver haul (individual and
team) in the men's 10m air rifle event, disappointed again in
the 50m range. He, though qualified for the final but went off
the boil to finish fourth with 1162, a point behind bronze
medal winner Zhu Qinan of China.
Narang misfired in the final with a shocking 8.3 with
his eighth shot that clearly cost him a medal. His 10.6 with
the last shot made no difference.
Teammates Imran Hasan Khan (1150) and Sanjeev Rajput
(1146), the country's best 3-position shooter, were totally
off colour and the team too suffered to finish 4th with an
overall aggregate of 3458.
At the Aoti Tennis centre, unseeded Sania needed just 50
minutes to whip Chan 6-1 6-0 with her booming forehands and
effective backhands to book a meeting with Chinese sixth seed
Zhang Shuai for a place in quarterfinals.
Compatriots Sanam Singh and Rushmi Chakravarthi advanced
to the mixed doubles pre-quarterfinals with a 7-5 6-3 victory
over Uzbekistan pair of Vaja Uzakov and Nigina Abduraimova
while Poojashree Venkatesha became a first round casualty,
suffering a 2-6 2-6 defeat against Chinese Taipei's Chen Kai
Chang in women's singles.
In badminton, medal contender Saina Nehwal remained the
only Indian left in the competition. Aravind Bhat crashed out
of men's singles event while mixed doubles pair of Jwala Gutta
and V Diju also made an exit.
Bhat lost 19-21 12-21 to world number sixth Boonsak
Ponsana of Thailand in his second round encounter while Jwala
and Diju squandered a first game advantage to lose 21-17 13-21
16-21 against Koreans Baekcheol Shin and Hyojung Lee.
In boxing, Paramjeet Samota assured India of a medal
after punching his way into the semifinals of super eavyweight
category while Suranjoy Singh survived a tense bout to book a
berth in the quarters of flyweight division.
Samota, who got a first round bye in the nine-boxer +91kg
competition, won a one-sided bout as his flurry of punches
proved too much for his South Korean opponent Park Sungkeun,
which forced the referee to stop the contest in the second
round.

A second medal eluded India in the swimming competitions
as its men's 4x100m medley relay team finished a disappointing
sixth in the final.
The quartet of Rehan Poncha, Sandeep Sejwal, M Badrinath
(who replaced Virdhawal Khade in the finals) and Aaron D'Souza
clocked 3:52.97s.
In squash, the duo of Saurav Ghosal and Siddharth Suchde
won their respective second round matches in the men's event,
while Chennai girls Dipika Pallikal and Joshna Chinappa
thrashed their rivals with identical 3-0 scorelines to make it
to the last-eight stage of the individual events.
Indian golfer Rashid Khan brought home an improved card
of four-under 68 to lie tied third after the second round of
Asian Games' individual golf competition.
Rashid sank as many as seven birdies against three bogeys
to take his two-day total to five-under 139, three strokes
behind the leader Luis Miguel Tabuena of Philippines.
India's campaign in table tennis ended with star paddler
Achanta Sharath Kamal and Anthony Amalraj bowing out in the
pre-quarterfinals of the men's singles.
Sharath struggled for 28 minutes before going down 9-11
4-11 7-11 10-12 11-6 to Korea's Sang Eun, while Amalraj was
taught a ping pong lesson by Chinese Taipei's Chih Yuan who
thrashed the Indian 6-11 10-12 5-11 1-11 in just 18 minutes.
Shamini Kumaresan too made an exit in women's singles
after losing to Sayaka Hirano of Japan 7-11 5-11 11-7 7-11
11-7 7-11 in the second round.
Commonwealth Games gold medallist men's doubles pair of
Sharath and Subhajit Saha too could not cross the last 16
hurdle as they were spanked 0-3 by Korean combination of
Jungwoo Lee and Sang Eun Oh.
Indian women suffered a 0-3 drubbing at the hands of
North Korea in their opening match of the volleyball while the
campaign ended in the sepaktakraw event with both the men's
and women's team losing their third consecutive group matches
at Haizhu sports centre. PTI SSR
SMT