Manjit Singh came from nowhere to snatch the men’s 800m gold for the biggest medal of his life. PV Sindhu, however, went down to Chinese Taipei’s Tai Tzu Ying in straight games to get a silver medal.
India also had an unexpected haul of a silver and a bronze in Kurash, an indigenous central asian form of wrestling. In the debut event of mixed 4x400m relay in athletics, India won silver.
India rose a rung to eighth in the overall standings with a total of 50 medals, nine of them gold, 19 silver and 22 bronze medals. India is now just seven short of matching their 2014 tally.
Athletics
Manjit Singh surprised the field and everyone watching to lead an Indian 1-2 in the Men’s 800m race. While Manjit took the gold with a timing of 1:46.15, Jinson Johnson took silver clocking 1:46.35 seconds.
India then clinched a silver 4x400m mixed relay race, finishing behind Bahrain. The quartet of Muhammed Anas, MR Poovamma, Hima Das and Arokia Rajiv clocked 3:15.71 seconds, while Bahrain ran away with the gold in 3:11.89.
100m silver medal winner Dutee Chand qualified for the 200m final even as compatriot Hima Das was disqualified for a false start.
Archery
The Indian men’s compound archery team of Rajat Chauhan, Aman Saini, and Abhishek Verma narrowly lost the gold in a dramatic final shoot-off against top seeds Korea in the final.
The Indian team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Muskan Kirar and Madhumita Kumari took home the silver in women’s compound archery team after a narrow 228-231 loss to Korea in the final.
Badminton
PV Sindhu proved to be no match to the guile and speed of world number one Tai Tzu Ying and went down 21-13, 21-16 in just 39 minutes to clinch a silver medal.
Boxing
Pavitra’s valiant effort fell just short while Sonia Lather couldn’t figure things out at all as Indian boxers endured a winless day. Sonia, a two-time Asian and world silver-medallist, lost to North Korea’s Jo Son Hwa in her featherweight 57kg category quarter-final bout. And, Pavitra wend down to home favourite Huswatun Hasanah in the lightweight 60kg category.
Kurash
India bagged two medals in Kurash, a form of wrestling indigenous to central Asia. Pincky Balhara and Malaprabha Yallappa Jadhav won the silver and bronze respectively in the women’s 52kg category.
Hockey
Defending champions India made a mockery of Sri Lankan challenge, pumping in 20 goals to remain unbeaten in the group stage, setting up a semi-final clash against Malaysia in the men’s hockey competition .
Squash
India continued its march ahead with another fairly comfortable wins in the squash team event. Barring Harinder Pal Sandhu, who lost to Al Tamini Abdulla in the men’s tie against Qatar, no other Indian faced any problem as both the men and the women inched ahead in their pursuit to qualify from the group stage.
Table tennis
India lost to second seeds Korea in the semi-finals of the men’s table tennis team event to finish with a historic bronze medal. This is the first table tennis medal for India at the Asian Games. Before this, India did not have a single medal in the sport which was introduced in the Games program in 1958.
Other sports
In cycling,India’s Sonali Chanu and Deborah both failed to enter the second round of the women’s keirin. India was also out of medal contention in the women’s and men’s team pursuit.
Indian volleyball men’s team lost 1-3 to Pakistan in a 7-12 classification match in the 18th Asian Games at Jakarta on Tuesday.
India went down 0-2 against Japan in the Women’s Quadrant preliminary group match in sepaktakraw.
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