Asian Games 2010 Day 8: Two Silver and Two Bronze but India slip to 14th position

By Victor D’Souza, Doha
From various sources
Bellevision Media Network

Saturday, 20 November 2010: Golfers and sailors contributed to the medal collection by fetching a silver each while cueist Aditya Mehta and squash player Saurav Ghosal bagged bronze as India dipped to the 14th position on the medal table on the eighth day of competitions in the 16th Asian Games on Saturday. But there was no let-up in China`s stranglehold in the Games as they continued their gold harvest to maintain their position atop the table with a whopping tally of 137-64-66. South Korea (52-43-56) and Japan (29-52-55) were in the second and third position respectively.

 

The men`s hockey team had a good day as they pipped arch rivals Pakistan 3-2 to cruise into the semifinals while the tennis players assured India of at least three more medals alongwith star pugilists Vijender Singh and Suranjoy Singh who stormed into the semifinals. But the failure to win enough medals, particularly gold, resulted in India slipping to 14th position in the medal rostrum, their lowest spot in the competitions so far. With the addition of four more medals, India`s medal tally climbed to two gold, 10 silver and 12 bronze. India had finished tenth on the medals table in the last Asian Games in Doha with a tally of 10-17-26.

 

The quartet of Rashid Khan (72), Abhijit Singh Chadha (76), Abhinav Lohan (72) and Rahul Bajaj (72) won a silver with a combine four-day score of 10-over 874 to give the first medal for the country from golf. The Indian sailing team comprising Balraj, Balakrishna Helegaonkar, Atool Sinha, Farokh Tarapore and Sekhar Singh Yadav also had their moment of glory when they clinched the silver in the open match racing event. The two bronze medals came through Aditya Mehta who lost his snooker singles semifinal encounter and Sourav Ghoshal, who lost in the semifinals of squash singles event.

 

 

The women`s hockey team also kept themselves on course for a bronze medal with a thumping 6-0 win over Kazakhstan in their penultimate round robin match. The golfers provided the spark by winning the silver in the team event. However, in the individual competitions, in which Shiv Kapur won a gold in the 2002 edition, the Indians could not make much of a mark. In men`s snooker singles, Aditya had to settle for a bronze after losing to Chun Marco Fu Ka of Hong Kong 1-4 in the semifinals. His bronze was India`s fourth medal from cue sports, including a gold won by Pankaj Advani in the billiards event.

 

Tennis assured three more medals with Sania Mirza scoring an upset 6-2, 6-3 win over second seed Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand to enter the semifinals while the duo of Somdev Devvarman and Sanam Singh also made it to the last four stage in men`s doubles. Sania then combined with Vishnu Vardhan to assure a bronze in the mixed doubles event as their fourth seeded Taipei rivals -- Chia Jung Chuang and Yi Chu-Huan -- retired mid-way.

 

Indian boxers also continued to sizzle with Vijender Singh (75kg) demolishing Korea`s Deokjin Cho to enter the semifinals and assure himself of at least a bronze medal. Another pugilist Amandeep Singh blanked Pakistan`s Muhammad Waseem to make the light flyweight 49kg quarterfinals while Suranjoy pulled off a hard-fought 4-2 triumph over Uzbekistan`s Shahriyor Isakov. In squash, Saurav Ghosal settled for a bronze medal after losing his semifinal clash to top-seed Mohammad Azlan Iskandar of Malaysia in the men`s singles..

 

In handball, the Indian men notched up their first win with a 56-22 victory over Mongolia but that was not enough for them to advance to the knock-out round. India`s women hoopsters suffered their second consecutive defeat, losing 44-98 to South Korea in their Group A preliminary match while women spikers continued to flounder and were outplayed 0-3 by Japan. Indian cyclists, however, failed to lift themselves from their dismal show so far with Sombir finishing 15th in the men`s Individual Time Trial while Sunita Devi signing off 10th in the women`s section of the same event.

 

Medals Tally

 

 

Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
China	138	65	67	270
South Korea	52	43	57	152
Japan	29	52	55	136
Iran	8	7	14	29
Hong Kong	7	12	8	27
Thailand	7	7	19	33
Chinese Taipei	6	8	28	42
North Korea	5	8	12	25
Kazakhstan	4	9	18	31
Indonesia	4	6	10	20
Singapore	4	6	6	16
Uzbekistan	3	10	14	27
Malaysia	3	7	7	17
India	2	10	12	24