Neha Thakur opened India’s medal account on Tuesday with a silver in sailing before fellow sailor Eabad Ali doubled the joy with a bronze medal in men’s Windsurfer RS:X event, to compensate for a rather uneventful opening to the Day Three competitions at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou.
The 17-year-old Neha stood second in the girl’s Dinghy ILCA4 event with a net total of 27 points in 11 races. Thailand’s Noppassorn Khunboonjan won gold with 16 while Singapore’s Keira Marie Carlyle took bronze with 28 points.
After Neha’s silver, Eabad Ali finished third in the Men’s Windsurfer RS:X event with a net score of 52 to pocket the bronze. Thailand’s Natthaphong Phonopparat won silver with 29 and Cho Wonwoo of South Korea took the gold with 13.
Earlier, India endured heartbreaks on Day 3 of the competitions at the 19th Asian Games with the the 10m mixed Air Rifle team of Divyansh Panwar and Ramita Jindal narrowly missing out a bronze, while Olympian fence CA Bhavani Devi also ended her campaign with a quarterfinal loss. The only positive in the morning session was the Indian men’s hockey team’s 16-1 rout of Singapore.
After the impressive show from the shooters in the last couple of days, India had high hopes from the mixed team events. In what turned out to be a thrilling encounter for the third place in the 10m Air Rifle mixed event, the Korean combo of Park Hajun and Lee Eunice, eventually prevailed over India’s Divyansh and Ramita 20-18, after a breath-taking effort from both teams.
However, the Pistol shooting trio of Manu Bhaker (1st), Esha Singh (3rd), Rhythm Sangwan (11th) came up with impressive performances at the end of Precision stage in Women’s 25m Pistol event. The Rapid stage will take place on Wednesday.
Fencing
India had high hopes from Olympian CA Bhavani Devi for a podium finish in the women’s sabre individual event. However, in an anti-climax, the Indian ended her campaign in the quarterfinals after suffering a 7-15 defeat against world no.12 and defending silver medallist Shao Yaqi of China.
Bhavani started her campaign with an impressive six-game unbeaten run earlier in the day. She began with a 5-2 win over Juliet Jie Min Heng of Singapore 5-2 in her first group stage bout before beating Saidi Arabia’s Alhammad. She continued her winning streak defeating Kazakh fencer Karina Dospay in her third bout, and finished the group stage with a 5-1 win over Bangladesh’s Roksana Khatun 5-1.
As a result, she was the top seed, and awarded a bye to directly head into the round of 16, in which she recorded a 15-9 win over Thailand’s Tonkhaw Phokaew 15-9 to reach the quarterfinals.
Men’s hockey
Skipper Harmanpreet Singh and Mandeep Singh slammed a hat-trick each as favourites India mauled lowly Singapore 16-1 to register their second consecutive win in the men’s hockey competition. The Indians continued their goal-scoring spree after the 16-0 rout of Uzbekistan in their tournament opener as they found the net at will against world No.49 Singapore. In other events, India cruised past Pakistan in the women’s squash team event, while the 4x100m medley team also qualified for final in swimming, creating a new Indian record for best timings at the event. India have so far bagged a total of 11 medals (two gold, three silver, and six bronze) at the Hangzhou Asian Games.
Later, Sachin Siwach and Narinder Berwal will lead India’s charge in boxing and Suraj Yadav will be seen in action in men’s 65 kg wushu event. In judo, Tulika Maan will fight for bronze medal, having secured a win over Chinese Taipei’s JW Tsai in the repechage round of women’s +78kg category.