Later, Mohammed Afsal and decathlete Tejaswin Shankar wrapped up another fruitful outing for the country with silver medals in men’s 800m and men’s decathlon event.

India now have 15 golds at Hangzhou 2023 with the total haul rising to 69, including 26 silver and 28 bronze. That’s just one medal away from equalling their haul at the Jakarta Asian Games in 2018.

Advertisement

There were more medals confirmed on the day, with Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist and reigning world champion Lovlina Borgohain storming into the women’s 75kg final and in the process, booked her quota for the 2024 Paris Games. The compound archers also assured India a host of medals, with Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Ojas Deotale and Abhishek Verma reaching their respective finals. In squash, Saurav Ghosal entered the men’s singles semifinals, while the mixed doubles pair of Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu and Dipika Pallikal Karthik, and Anahat Singh and Abhay Singh also went into medal contention.

Making their debut at the continental sporting extravaganza, the Indian men’s cricket team made it to the semifinals after handing Nepal a 23-run defeat in their quarterfinal contest.

Boxing

World champion Lovlina Borgohain (75kg) booked an Olympic quota for herself by moving to the final while Preeti Pawar (54kg) and Narender Berwal (+92 kg) signed off with bronze medals on Tuesday.

Lovlina ensured herself a shot for the women’s 75kg title against two-time Olympic medallist Qian Li of China after recording a clever 5-0 unanimous decision win against Asian Championship silver medallist Baison Manikon of Thailand in the semifinals.

The lanky Assamese pugilist started off on the backfoot and remained defensive till the last minute before unleashing her full potential, landing jabs to break Maneekon’s defence constantly to take the first round via unanimous decision.

Baison, however, bounced back with some quality shots in the second, and took it via split decision to take the bout to the decider. In the third round, Lovlina used her height’s advantage to the fullest, and landed effective hooks on the counter to pocket the round and the contest with another unanimous decision.

A small trivia ahead of Wednesday’s final, Lovlina had recently beaten the Chinese by a 4-1 split decision verdict in the semifinals of the 2023 World Championships in Delhi.

Earlier in the day, 2022 Asian championships bronze medallist Preeti Pawar put up a brave fight before eventually going down 0-5 to reigning flyweight champion China’s Chang Yuan. Preeti, whose father is an assistant sub-inspector in Haryana Police, has already secured an Olympic quota.

Narender Berwal saved the blushes for the men’s boxing contingent’s rather ordinary Asian Games campaign with a bronze medal after losing his semifinal bout against Kazakhstan’s Kunkabayev Kamshybek by unanimous decision.

In men’s 57kg quarterfinals, Sachin Siwach joined the list of men’s boxers enduring a poor outing at the Games, after losing 1-4 in a split decision verdict to Lyu Ping of China.

Squash

It turned out a productive day for the squash contingent with veteran Saurav Ghosal ensuring a medal in men’s singles before the mixed team pairs of Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu and Dipika Pallikal Karthik, and Anahat Singh and Abhay Singh came up with impressive performances to ensure podium finishes.

In men’s singles, Saurav secured himself yet another Asian Games medal after beating Japan’s Ryunosuke Tsukue 3-0 in the quarterfinals.

The focus then turned to the mixed team pairs, with Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu and Dipika Pallikal Karthik staging a stunning comeback to make their way to the semifinals. After going down in the first game, Dipika and Harinder bounced back in style to register a 2-1 (7-11, 11-5, 11-4) win over the Philippines pair of Jemmyca Aribado and Robert Andrew Garcia to assure a medal.

Earlier, Dipika and Harinder breezed past Japan’s Risa Sugimoto and Tomotaka Endo 2-0 (11-5 11-5) in the previous round.

Anahat Singh and Abhay Singh doubled India’s joy by recording a 2-1 win against South Korean duo of Yang Yeonsoo and Lee Dongjun to advance to the semifinals. The Indian duo won the first game 11-4, while losing the second one 8-11 and came back to dominate the third game 11-1, to ensure another medal.

Anahat had earlier teamed up with Abhay to beat Hong Kong’s Tsz Wing Tong and Ming Hong Tang in 2-0 (11-10 11-8) in Pool D.

However, it was the end of the women’s singles campaign as Tanvi Khanna went down 0-3 (5-11, 6-11, 12-14) against Japan’s Satomi Watanabe in straight games in the quarterfinal.

Archery

Indian compound archers enjoyed a fruitful outing on the 10th day of the competitions at Hangzhou, assuring three medals to match their best-ever feat of 2014 Asian Games in Incheon where they have won one gold, one silver and one bronze.

Reigning world champion Ojas Deotale blazed his way to the final with a perfect score of 150, while veteran Abhishek Verma also shone bright to set up an all-Indian gold medal clash and assure the county of a top-two finish in the men’s individual compound archery competition.

The 21-year-old Deotale, who won the senior World Championship in Berlin a couple of months back, blazed his way to all perfect 10s from 15 arrows against South Korean seventh-seed Yang Jaewon. As many as seven of Deotale’s 15 perfect 10s were closer to the centre (X) as the Indian

coasted to a thumping 150-146 win to set up a title clash with compatriot Verma.

Earlier, Deotale shot an incredible 150 out of 150 to breeze past Akbarali Karbayev of Kazakhstan in the last-eight round.

The 34-year-old Verma, who will be looking to upgrade his 2014 silver medal in what appears to be his last Asian Games appearance shown the doors to another South Korean, top-seed Joo Jaehoon with a clinical 147-145 win.

Earlier, 2014 silver medallist Verma overcame a late challenge from Kazakhstan’s Andrey Tyutyun to win an intense shoot-off and enter the semifinal. Leading 60-57 after two ends, Verma slipped as his Kazakh rival bounced back to level 147-147 and forced a shoot-off.

Both the archers shot a 10, but the Indian was adjudged the winner — 147-147 (10*-10) — as his arrow was closer to the centre.

Among the women, Jyothi Surekha Vennam reached the women’s gold medal match after prevailing over world champion Aditi Swami, who still has the chance to win a bronze on finals day.

Eyeing her first individual gold at the Asian Games, the 27-year-old multiple World Cup medallist will face So Chaewon of South Korea in the final. Aditi, on the other hand, will fight for the bronze medal against Ratih Zilizati Fadhly of Indonesia.

Fourth seeded Aditi dropped just one point from 15 arrows to eliminate Amaya Amparo Cojuangco of Phillipines 149-146 in the quarterfinals, while Jyothi ousted ninth seed Adel Zhexenbinova of Kazakhstan 147-144.

Cricket

Opening batter Yashasvi Jaiswal slammed his first T20I century to headline India’s 23-run quarter-final victory against Nepal on their Asian Games debut. The Ruturaj Gaikwad-led side will next play Bangladesh or Malaysia in Friday’s semifinal.

Opting to bat, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Jaiswal teed off inside the powerplay, bringing up the fifty with Jaiswal consuming all off just 22 balls to bring up his half-century, and continued to make merry despite his partner and captain, Gaikwad (25) getting a subdued start.

Jaiswal went on to smash a magnificent century off mere 49 deliveries to hold one end even as Nepal bowlers dented the Indian lineup with quick wickets of Tilak Varma and Jitesh Sharma. Later Rinku Singh smashed two sixes and two fours in the final over to help India post a mammoth 202 for 4.

In reply, Ravi Bishnoi and Avesh Khan picked up three wickets, each, while R Sai Kishore also bagged a wicket on his T20I debut to ensure India’s smooth passage to the last four stages.

Canoe Sprint

India’s Arjun Singh and Sunil Singh Salam clocked 3:53.329 to finish third in the men’s canoe double 1000m final. Uzbekistan took the gold by clocking 3:43.796 and Kazakhstan took the silver with 3:49.991.

This is India’s second canoe medal in Asian Games history. Johnny Rommel and Siji Kumar Sadanandan won a bronze in the same race at the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima.

The women’s kayak four 500m and canoe double 200m teams, meanwhile, finished eighth in their respective finals, failing to add another canoe medal.

Elsewhere, the Indian pair of London Singh Hemam (207.00) and Siddharth Bajrang Pardeshi (236.35) failed to make it beyond the preliminary round of men’s 3m springboard. The Indian women’s kabaddi team won 56-23 against South Korea in the Group A match. Pooja Hathwala and Pushpa were the top raiders for India, scoring a super 10, each, while captain Ritu Negi was the star defender, inflicting five all-outs. The Korean raiders showed an inclination towards bonus points, rather than touch points in their offensive strategy.