Nagoya: The track and field stars and a determined wushu player provided the desperately-needed fillip to India’s Asian Games campaign on a day when shooters were mostly off-target, and the rowers just about managed to save face with a solitary bronze before ending a campaign marred by dissension at the continental showpiece.
For the second day in a row, skeet shooters rescued India’s faltering campaign at the ranges by clinching the mixed team bronze even though a gold is yet to be delivered by the much-hyped group.
But the evening session brought with it a sense of relief as the mixed 4x400m relay quartet of TS Manu, MR Poovamma, Vishal TK and Vithya Ramraj lived up to the expectations to snare a third consecutive and a second successive silver medal at the Games, clocking 3:14.46 seconds.
This was after Seema fetched a surprise bronze in the women’s 10,000m race to give the country’s athletics campaign a strong start.
As a result, India’s medal tally increased to 17 with one gold, seven silver and nine bronze medals so far.
Earlier in the day, the beleaguered rowers, who have been complaining about loss of crucial balance due to last-minute shuffling of combinations, signed off with a face-saving bronze through Satnam Singh and Salman Khan in the men’s double sculls competition.
The day got a fairly bright start when wushu player Roshibina Devi collected her second successive silver and third overall medal at the Asian Games after making the squad only due to the injury-forced ouster of Divyanshi Choudhary. Divyanshi had gone on to accuse Roshibina of trying to sabotage her chances in collusion with federation officials.
India’s campaign across sports has been far from convincing so far in the continental showpiece. The only gold that has so far come through is from the women’s cricket team.
The biggest letdown by a considerable margin have been the shooters and Thursday’s script was no different. After women’s air pistol squad drew a blank the previous day, the men too came a cropper as they finished fourth in the team event with neither of the three making the individual finals.
It could well have been a barren day but for the mixed team skeet bronze by Parinaaz Dhaliwal and Anantjeet Singh Naruka, both of whom have also claimed bronze medals in the respective women’s and men’s team competitions earlier.
The embattled rowers, who have also been complaining about threats from the Rowing Federation of India, finally had something to show for thanks to Satnam and Salman.
The pair stayed in second place until the 1,500m mark before slipping to third in the final 500m, clocking 6:13.25 at the Nagaragawa International Regatta Course to finish 3.88 seconds behind gold-medallists China.
Roshibina, meanwhile, became India’s most successful wushu player in Asian Games history with her performance even though it ended on a losing note. She was beaten by Zhang Xiaoyu of China in the women’s 60kg final.
The Kabaddi march
Both the men’s and women’s kabaddi teams continued their unbeaten run to remain on course for a successful defence of their respective gold medals.
While the men outplayed Chinese Taipei 37-21, the women got the better of Japan 50-25 to enter the semifinals and be assured of bronze medals.
But they are expected to advance further and finish on top in the competition that India has dominated since its introduction.
India also enjoyed a productive day on the squash courts with Anahat Singh, Tanvi Khanna, Abhay Singh and Veer Chotrani advancing to the singles quarterfinals, and Joshna Chinappa and Velavan Senthilkumar making the mixed doubles last-eight.
Junior world champion and medal favourite Anahat began her women’s singles campaign with a 3-0 (11-4, 11-5, 11-7) win over Singapore’s Wai Iynn Au Yeong in just 19 minutes.
Tanvi then joined her 18-year-old compatriot in the quarterfinals after beating Singapore’s Wai Yhann Au Yeong 3-1 (5-11, 11-4, 11-5, 13-11) in 39 minutes.
The results set up an all-Indian women’s singles quarterfinal between Anahat and Tanvi.
Unlike last edition, semifinalists are not assured of a guaranteed medal in the squash singles competition.
In men’s singles, Abhay Singh produced a commanding display to beat Sri Lanka’s Ravindu Laksiri 3-0 (11-5, 11-6, 11-0) in 25 minutes. Veer survived a scare, overcoming Malaysia’s Sanjay Jeeva to prevail 3-2 (11-9, 8-11, 11-6, 15-17, 11-6) in a one-hour nine-minute battle.
This was after Joshna and Velavan advanced beating fellow Indians Suraj Chand and Shameena Riaz in straight games.
There were some facile wins in the table tennis competition as well with women’s doubles pairs of Sreeja Akula-Syndrela Das and Yashaswini Ghorpade-Diya Chitale advancing to the pre-quarterfinals.
Manush Shah and Manav Thakkar also progressed to the last 32 in men’s singles.
Hockey team fires again
In-form striker Dilpreet Singh slammed home a hat-trick to hand the Indian men’s hockey team a comfortable 8-2 win over Korea and all but assure its place in the semifinal.
It was India’s third consecutive win, keeping them at the top of pool A. India had earlier thrashed Indonesia 13-1 and Sri Lanka 16-1 in their opening two pool matches.
Dilpreet (10th, 26th, 32nd minutes) continued his impressive form and scored three fine field goals, while Abhishek (15th, 38th) struck a brace.
Shilanand Lakra (4th), skipper Harmanpreet Singh (11th) and Rajinder Singh (60th) were the other goal getters for India.
Disappointment in boxing, gymnastics
Parveen was the lone Indian boxer to progress on the day after she got a walkover into the quarters of the women’s 65kg category. But it was curtains for compatriots Sakshi Chaudhary (51kg) and Sumit (70kg).
Parveen, who had served a WADA suspension for whereabouts failure, had lost in the quarterfinal stage at the Commonwealth Games last month.
Earlier, Sakshi bowed out following a 2-3 pre-quarterfinal loss to Kazakhstan’s Alua Balkibekova in the women’s 51kg category. Sumit, however, was forced to withdraw mid-fight due to a knee injury.
The gymnastic campaign came to an end with lone Indian in fray, Pranati Nayak, finishing sixth in eight-women vault final in Artistic gymnastics.
The 31-year-old scored identical 12.900 on her first and second vault to aggregate 13.100 with a 0.20 bonus added to her total.
The Indian, who had recovered from a leg injury to make it to the Games, fetched a difficulty score of 4.4 and execution score of 8.500 in both her vaults.
The fencers did not fair any better as C A Bhavani Devi and Shreya Gupta were eliminated in the women’s individual sabre event. Bhavani, India’s first fencer to compete at the Olympics, advanced to the round of 16 after defeating Mongolia’s Oulen Tugsjargan 15-8 in the round of 32.
However, the 32-year-old Indian ran into a tough opponent in China’s Rao Xueyi and went down 5-15 in the pre-quarterfinals.
PM congratulates Indian medallists at Asian Games
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday congratulated Indian athletes Satnam Singh, Salman Khan and Naorem Roshibina Devi for their medal-winning performances at the Asian Games.
In a post on X, Modi lauded Satnam Singh and Salman Khan for securing a bronze medal in the men’s double sculls rowing event.
The Prime Minister said the duo’s composure and coordination stood out during the competition and expressed hope that the achievement would inspire them to achieve greater success in the future.
Modi also congratulated Naorem Roshibina Devi for winning the silver medal in the women’s Sanda 60kg event.
He described her achievement as significant, noting that she had now won medals at three consecutive Asian Games. The Prime Minister praised her consistency, courage and determination and wished her success in future competitions.
