Women shoot silver, Vijay bags bronze
Guangzhou, Nov. 14: The star-studded shooting squad continued the Indian medal rush at the Asian Games when the women’s 10m air pistol team clinched a silver, while Vijay Kumar turned around a poor qualifying display to win a bronze in the men’s event here on Sunday.
Vijay just about made the cut for the finals by finishing eighth in the qualification round but shot the highest score of 101.4 in the medal round for a total of 680.4 to take the bronze.
Heena Sidhu, Annu Raj Singh and Sonia Rai had their moment of glory as they won the silver medal. The Indian trio combined to shoot 1140, a point adrift of the gold medallist Korean troika of Yunmi Gim, Byunghee Kim and Lim Ho Lee. Heena shot a score of 381, while Annu and Sonia managed scores of 380 and 379 respectively to help India win its third silver in shooting. Chinese shooters Qi Sun, Jun Wen Guo and Ling Su Yu settled for the bronze with a score of 1139.
Meanwhile, the tennis players kept themselves in the medal reckoning by moving into the semifinals by prevailing over last edition’s bronze medallists Thailand with a 2-1 margin. Unranked Sanam Singh defeated 546th ranked Kittipong Wachiramanowong 6-1, 6-4 in the first singles. Somdev Devvarman then clinched the issue for India by edging past Danai Udomchoke 7-5, 7-5 in a close encounter.
In table tennis, Indian challenge came to an end in both men’s and women’s table tennis team events, after suffering quarterfinal defeats against higher-ranked opponents here. The men’s team lost 1-3 to formidable Japan while the women's team suffered a humiliating 0-3 defeat against top-seeds China. After the ouster of men's team, the women were thrashed by Chinese opponents, comprising of three top-10 players in their arsenal. The slide began with Shamini Kumaresan, who went down fighting to world number one Yan Guo 6-11, 7-11, 2-11.
In volleyball, India recovered from a game down to beat Kazakhstan 3-1 in their opening Group B match, while the weightlifters continued to put up a dismal show with Rustam Sarang and Omkar Otari finishing ninth and 11th in the men’s 62kg category.
The swimmers also disappointed with Rehan Poncha and Virdhawal Khade failing to qualify for the men’s 100m butterfly event.
In cycling, Okram Bikram Singh and Hylem Prince failed to qualify for the men’s sprint quarterfinals after losing their repechage events. India suffered their second loss, going down 28-37 against Qatar in a Group A match of the handball competition.
Caption:
Indian shooters Sonia Rai (from left), Heena Sidhu and Annu Raj Singh pose after winning a silver in the women’s 10m air pistol team event in Guangzhou on Sunday.
Post new comment