Rahi Sarnobat beat all expectations to become India’s first woman shooter with an individual Asian Games gold and the low-profile wushu players delivered their best ever performance even in defeat on another high-yielding day for the country at the regional showpiece.
With four gold, three silver and eight bronze medals in their overall tally, India stood seventh in the medal table, which was led by quite a margin by powerhouse China with 82 medals, including 37 gold.
Shooting
Rahi Sarnobat became the first Indian woman to win a gold medal in shooting at the Asian Games. She won a thrilling women’s 25m air pistol final, edging out Thailand’s N Yangpaiboon after two shoot-offs. Manu Bhaker, after a brilliant qualifying round, finished fifth in the final.
Anjum Moudgil missed the cut for the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions final by one point. She was second in the qualification table after the kneeling and prone positions, but a poor standing round cost her in the end.
Wrestling
After the high of two gold and a bronze medal in freestyle competition, India endured a disappointing end to their wrestling campaign with Greco-Roman grappler Harpreet Singh losing his bronze medal bout.
Harpreet, competing in a higher weight category (87kg), lost 3-6 to Kazakhstan’s Azamat Kustubayev in a bout in which a few questions were raised about umpiring.
Harpreet was India’s lone medal hope after Gurpreet Singh (77kg), Naveen (130kg) and Hardeep (97) failed to reach the medal round.
Archery
India’s Abhishek Verma has finished the men’s compound individual ranking round in fourth position with a total score of 704. Aman Saini came in 16th with 704, Rajat Chauhan 18th with 691 and Sangampreet Singh 19th with 689.
India finished second in the compound men’s team ranking round behind Korea, who scored a Games record of 2116. India’s total score was 2087.
India’s ranking in the compound mixed team is also second with a score of 1409. Korea came first with a world record score of 1412.
Gymnastics
India, without the services of Dipa Karmakar, finish a creditable seventh in the team final. They improved on their floor routine score from the qualification rounds but in every other routine, the scores dropped. China bag the gold, followed by North Korea and Japan.
Hockey
Indian men’s hockey team recorded its biggest ever win, thrashing Hong Kong China 26-0 in a Pool B match of the Asian Games in Jakarta.
The huge gulf between the two sides was evident as India bettered their 86-year-old record when they defeated USA with a 24-1 margin in the Los Angeles Olympics.
Tennis
Ankita Raina and top seeds men’s doubles pair of Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan assured India of at least a couple of bronze medals in the tennis competition by progressing to the semi-finals.
Ramkumar Ramathan, second seed in the men’s singles, however lost his round of 16 match against Jurabek Karimov of Uzbekistan.
Rowing
Indian rowers continued their good show as they qualified for the final round in three more events.
Rohit Kumar and Bhagwan Singh topped the men’s lightweight double sculls repechage round, clocking 7:14.23s to qualify for the final race to be held on August 24.
In the women’s four repechage round, the Indian quartet of Sanjita Dung Dung, Annu, Navneet Kaur and Yamini Singh finished fourth with a time of 7:53.29s but still made it to the final to be held on August 24.
Swimming
The Indian team of Aaron DSouza, Virdhawal Khade, Sajan Prakash and Anshul Kothari finished eighth with a timing of 3:25.34 seconds in the men’s 4x100 freestyle final. Sajan failed to make the cut for the 100m butterfly final.
Other sports
All four Indian wushu players lost their semi-final bouts to settle for bronze medals but ensured that the country produced its best ever performance in the Asian Games.
Naorem Roshibini Devi, Santosh Kumar, Surya Bhanu Partap Singh and Narender Grewal lost their Sanda event semifinal bouts but in the process gave the Indian team an unprecedented four medals in the Asian Games.
Navjeet Maan’s campaign comes to an end in the pre-quarters of the men’s -80 kg category taekwondo, as he goes down to China’s Chen Linglong 6-20.
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