Harpal Singh Bedi
Hangzhou, 24 September: The lightweight double sculls team of Olympians Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh and the men’s eight team won silver medals in their respective Asian Games rowng events in Hangzhou,China on Sunday.
The Indian men’s pair of Babu Lal Yadav and Lekh Ram also won the bronze medal to take India’s tally to three medals in rowing at the Asian Games.
Competing at the Fuyang Water Sports Centre, Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh won India’s first medal at the 19th Asian Games with a timing of 6:28.18 in Final A. The duo finished 5.02 seconds behind gold medallists China. Uzbekistan secured bronze in 6:33.42.
Earlier, the Indians made it to the medal race after claiming the pole position in repechage 1 with a timing of 6:55.78. They clocked 6:27.45 for second place in heat 1 to enter the repechage. Only the top teams from the heats advanced directly to the final.
This was India’s second successive medal in men’s lightweight double sculls at the Asian Games. They won a bronze in the same event at Jakarta 2018.
Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh won the gold medal at the 2022 Asian championships and finished 11th overall at Tokyo 2020 in the lightweight double sculls event – India’s best-ever finish in any rowing event at the Olympics.
In the men’s eight final, the Indian team of Charanjeet Singh, DU Pande, Naresh Kalwaniya, Neeraj, Neetesh Kumar, Ashish, Bheem Singh, Jaswinder Singh and Punit Kumar were on China’s heels till the last quarter but settled for silver after finishing in 5:43.01. China claimed gold in 5:40.17 while Indonesia, who were leading India at the halfway mark, won the bronze medal with a 5:45.51 time in Final A.
The pair of Babu Lal Yadav and Lekh Ram won the bronze medal in 6:50.41. Uzbekistan settled for silver in 6:48.11 while China won the gold medal in 6:44.20.
Indian rowers competed in three more events on Sunday but did not win a medal.
In the double sculls final, Satnam Singh and Parminder Singh had a strong opening and were in a medal position till the 1500m mark. However, the pair lost ground in the final quarter to finish sixth with a timing of 6:40.90.
Earlier, Satnam Singh and Parminder Singh won the repechage with a timing of 6:48.06 after claiming second place in heat 1 with a timing of 6:27.01.
The women’s four final saw Aswathi PB, Mrunamayee Nilesh S, Thangjam Priya Devi and Rukmani achieve the timing of 7:12.40 for fifth place. The quartet came sixth in the preliminaryround with a timing of 7:09.07.
In the women’s lightweight double sculls, the duo of Kiran and Anshika Bharti settled for 10th place with a timing of 7:40.84 in Final B. Earlier, they clocked 7:27.57 to finish fourth in heat 2 and fell into the repechage rounds.
Rowing at Asian Games 2023 has a total of 14 gold medals on offer. Seven medal races were held on Sunday while the remaining seven will be on Monday. India will compete in four of them.