Nagoya, Sep 25 Suruchi Singh and Kamaljeet ended an unusually long wait for a shooting gold and long-distance runner Gulveer Singh sparkled with his 10,000m silver but the first-round exit of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty from the badminton men’s doubles event came as a setback for India at the Asian Games here on Friday.
Suruchi and Kamaljeet combined for a score of 484.6, a Games and Asian record, to dominate the field from start to finish en route the gold. The 19-year-old Suruchi contributed 245.7 and Kamaljeet added 238.9 points to the overall tally.
The performance lifted the sagging morale of India’s shooting contingent that had been battling with the disappointment of not striking gold in 10m air rifle and ending without a single medal in the individual, men’s and women’s team 10m air pistol competitions.
Their gold could prove to be the catalyst for an improved shooting performance in the remainder of the competition.
The ranges also threw up a silver thanks to the men’s 50m rifle 3-position team of Aishwary Pratap Singh, Rudrankksh Patil and Niraj Kumar. They looked on course for gold for much of the competition, only for China to finish strongly and deny them the top step. India finished with an aggregate of 1762, four points behind China’s 1766.
In track-and-field, Gulveer improved on the bronze he won in the 2023 Hangzhou edition to a silver, clocking 28:29.38 seconds in a trademark assured run.
With bronze medals from shot-putter Manpreet Kaur and mixed table tennis team of Diya Chitale and Manush Shah also added to the tally, India’s total increased to 22 medals.
For Manpreet, this was her first major international medal since 2023. She took the third place with an effort of 17.17m.
Aishwary and Niraj also made it to the individual final, in third and fourth positions respectively, but could not fetch medals.
The women’s hockey team, on the other hand, remained in firm control and continued its unbeaten run, beating hosts Japan 3-1 to virtually seal a semifinal berth.
While the shooting campaign picked up, the badminton court gave India the biggest shock of the day as former world No.1 and two-time world championship bronze-medallists, Satwik and Chirag, made a shocking early exit from the competition they were expected to dominate.
In a gruelling three-game match against Thailand’s Pakkapon Teeraratsakul and Peeratchai Sukphun, the Indians lost 21-12, 19-21, 14-21 in a one-hour-eight-minute contest.
“It’s the mental part. Whenever we are mentally free, I think no one can beat us. But when we are stuck anywhere, we give opponents a chance to beat us,” Satwik said later, trying to explain the defeat but without managing to come up with a definitive answer.
Bronze in TT; Kabaddi, squash march
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Their loss aside, India had lots to celebrate in other events with two golds in Kabaddi within touching distance after both the men’s and women’s team stormed into the finals with wins over Thailand and Nepal respectively.
In the table Tennis competition, Manush Shah and Diya Chitale claimed the mixed doubles bronze. They lost 0-4 to the Chinese pair of Sun Yingsha and Wang Chuqin in the last four stage.
At the squash courts, Indian players assured themselves of three medals as Joshna Chinappa and Velavan Senthilkumar entered the mixed doubles semifinals, while Anahat Singh and Abhay Singh advanced to the last four in singles.
Joshna, playing in a record seventh Asian Games, and Senthilkumar began the winning spree with an 11-3, 11-5 victory over the Philippines’ David Pelino and Jemyca Aribado in the mixed doubles quarterfinals.
India’s first ever junior world champion and medal favourite Anahat breezed past compatriot Tanvi Khanna 11-2, 11-5, 11-3 in the women’s singles quarterfinals to stay on course for a coveted Olympic berth.
Anahat will next face world No 6 Satomi Watanabe, a bronze medalist from Hangzhou.
Abhay, meanwhile, dispatched local favourite Ryonosuke Tsukue 11-4, 11-3, 11-6 to set up a semifinal clash with Pakistan’s Irfan Muhammad, who got the better of Veer Chotrani. The men’s and women’s singles gold winners will directly qualify for 2028 Los Angeles Olympics where squash is set to make its debut.
Mixed results in badminton, Boxing
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The heartbreak of Satwik and Chirag’s ouster notwithstanding, there were some good results for India in badminton.
In women’s doubles, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand had to work hard to advance, overcoming Hong Kong’s Hiu Yan Tsang and Lok Lok Lui 21-16 16-21 21-16 in an intense three-game battle.
The mixed pair of Tanisha Crasto and Dhruv Kapila advanced to the quarterfinals with back-to-back wins.
They began with a comfortable 21-8 21-7 win over Maldives’ Nibal Ahmed and Aminath Nabeeha Abdul Razzaq and followed it up with a hard-fought 22-20 24-22 victory over Malaysia’s Shevon Jemie Lai and Soon Huat Goh to enter the quarterfinals.
At the boxing arena, Sachin Siwach moved to the men’s 60kg quarterfinals with a scrappy 4-1 win over Jordan’s Mohammad Adnan Abu Jajeh. However, it was curtains for last edition’s bronze-medallist Preeti Pawar.
The Commonwealth Games gold medallist, who received a first round bye, went down 0-5 to North Korea’s reigning Asian Games champion Pang Chol M in the women’s 54kg round of 16.
No hope in fencing
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India suffered a double setback in the fencing events with both the men’s foil and women’s epee teams knocked out in the round of 16.
The men’s foil team suffered a 27-45 defeat to Hong Kong, while the women’s epee side went down 29-45 to Uzbekistan.
(PTI News)
