Asian Games: Four bronzes for India on day four (Roundup)

GUANGZHOU - Gymnast Ashish Kumar, swimmer Virdhawal Khade, chess International Master Harika Dronavalli and wushu exponent Bimoljit Singh Tuesday claimed a bronze apiece for India at the Asian Games on a day boxer Suranjoy Singh and paddlers Sharath-Saha advanced into the next round. Kumar’s was India’s first Asiad medal in the sport, while Khade’s came after 24 years.

India were assured of at least a silver in women’s wushu with Sandhyarani Devi moving into the finals of the event.

India defeated Vietnam 3-0 in their last group match to book a place in the quarterfinals of the men’s volleyball competition.

The men’s football team and the women’s hockey teams, however, suffered humiliating 0-5 and 0-3 losses, both to Japan, with the former being knocked out of the tournament.

Commonwealth Games gold medallists Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa lost to second-seeded Chinese Tian Qin and Zhao Yunlei 10-21, 5-21 in the women’s doubles pre-quarterfinals. Earlier in the day, they had advanced to the last 16 stage when Thailand’s Savitree Amitrapai and P. Munkitchokecharoen retired after losing the first game 13-21.

India’s medal-winning streak in cue sports came to a halt with Dharmender Singh Lily, Alok Kumar and Manan Chandra crashing out of their respective events.

In cycling, medal hope Mahita Mohan came a dismal ninth while Suchitra Devi Konsam could not finish the women’s points race finals, while in the men’s keirin, O. Bikram Singh and Prince Herbert Sara Hylem came second in their respective repechage and qualified for round two.

India’s judo campaign also ended.

After four days of competitions, India slipped to ninth place in the medal’s tally with a mere 12, comprising one gold, four silver and seven bronze.

China head the table with 133 medals (77-28-28), followed by South Korea-66 (22-17-27) and Japan-78 (15-34-29). North Korea, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are the other countries above India.

Ashish Kumar’s bronze came in the men’s gymnastics floor final with an aggregate score of 14.92 behind gold winner Chenglong Zhang of China (15.40) and South Korean Soo Myun Kim (15.40), who won the silver.

Khade, who narrowly missed the bronze in the 50 metre freestyle event Monday, clocked 24.31 seconds for his third-place finish.

Jiawei Zhou (23.66 secs) won the gold while the silver went to Japan’s Masayuki Kishida (24.13 secs).

Harika, with five wins, two losses and one draw, scored 5.5 points to come third in the women’s individual chess event, where Chinese top seed Hou Yifan won the gold and compatriot Zhao Xue claimed the silver.

In the men’s section, Krishnan Sasikaran, who was in sight of a medal overnight, lost both his matches Tuesday to be toppled to ninth place with 5.5 points.

Bimoljit lost 0-2 to Iranian Mohsen Mohammadseifi in the semifinal of the men’s wushu event and settled for the bronze medal. In the women’s event, Sandhyarani won 8-1 against Paloy Barckkham of Laos in the semifinal at the Nansha Gymnasium. She will face Iran’s Khadijeh Azadpour in Wednesday’s final.

Suranjoy Singh won 7-2 against Thailand’s Chatchai Butdee, taking a 1-0 lead in the first round and blanking the Thai in the second when he opened up a 4-0 lead.

Butdee, however, managed to get two points in the final round, but Suranjoy rained blows and won the bout 7-2.

Sharath Kamal and Subhajit Saha entered the prequarters of the men’s doubles table tennis with a comfortable 11-7, 11-4, 11-7 victory over H. Albahrani and M. Alenezy of Kuwait.

Sharath and Saha, who won the doubles gold in the Delhi Commonwealth Games, next face tough opponents in South Koreans Jungwoo Lee and Sang Eun Ho in the round of 16 Thursday.

However, it was the end of the road for Sharath in the mixed doubles — he was partnering Shamini Kumaresan and lost in the pre-quarterfinals. The duo went down 12-10, 4-11, 11-8, 2-11, 6-11 to the Japanese pair of Seiya Kishikawa and Ai Fukuhara.

The other Indian men’s doubles pair of Soumyadeep Roy and Anthony Amalraj failed to get past Cheung Yuk and Li Ching of Hong Kong and lost 5-11, 5-11, 7-11.

The men’s singles and women’s doubles first round matches will be played Wednesday.

India’s judo campaign ended after Tombi Devi and Navjot Chana bowed out in the quarter-finals.

Tombi, who was a medal hope along with judo World Cup bronze medallist Kalpana Devi, failed to score a point against Jung Yeon Chung and lost 0/110 in the women’s 48kg category. The contest lasted two minutes at the Huagong Gymnasium.

Navjot also lost his men’s 60 kg quarter-final 0/120 to Rishod Sobirov of Uzbekistan in little less than three minutes.