The Hindu : Disappointing day for India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 04, 2002

Sport

Sport - Asian Games

Disappointing day for India

By Our Special Correspondent

BUSAN Oct. 3. India, able to account for only one silver through its shooters, found itself slip down three rungs down from its overnight seventh position in the medals tally on the fifth day of the 14th Asian Games here on Thursday. Overall, it was a disappointing day, which only brought the weaknesses of Indian sport as such to the fore once again.

Perhaps, the biggest blow for the large Indian contingent came from the Masan gymnasium where Dingko Singh, winner of the boxing gold in the 1998 Bangkok Games, met with a first-round defeat at the hands of his bantam weight opponent, Choe Phyong-Chol of North Korea, on points at 26-6. The Manipuri pugilist had made a similar exit from the Commonwealth Games in Manchester as well.

Though much was also expected from the football team led by Bhaichung Bhutia, who today was declared as the Player of the Month for September by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), India is now almost out of the reckoning for a place in the quarterfinals after its 0-2 defeat at the hands of China in Yangsan. The only saving grace was the improvement that the Indians showed in all departments of the game as such before they succumbed to a brace by Yu Tao. The first of these two goals coming off a disputed penalty.

Also heart-breaking was the defeat suffered by wrestler Kamini Devi, who lost the bronze-medal bout in the women's freestyle 48kg cateogry to Tsogtbazar Enkhjargal of Mongolia on points. Kamini who began her campaign with a defeat against Xiue Zhong of China on points had since then defeated Altyn Muradova (Turkmenistan) and Kao Wei Chien (Chinese Taipei), both on points, before making it to the round for the third and fourth places.

At the Nakdong river course, the Indian rowers were unable to rework the magic of Wednesday, when they had delivered a bronze medal. On the concluding day of the event, India figured in three finals but could make no impact in either of them. In the final rankings, the men's eight-oars coxswain team of Inderpal Singh, Roshan Lal, Sunil Kakde, Jenil Krishnan, P.T. Paulose, Udaybir Singh, R.K.Pillai, K.V.Sajith and Kudrat Ali was placed fifth with a 7:00.07, while the light weight four-oars without coxswain team of Mujeeb Rehman, Saji Thomas, Ratheesh Kumar and Kasam Khan was fourth in 1:36.45.

In the women's section too, it was disappointment which was in store for the Indians who found themselves finish outside the medal bracket in coxswainless pair-oars with Sobhni Rajan and Julee Varghese finishing fifth and last in their final. India had won two bronzes in Bangkok.

In golf, India at the end of day one was placed fifth in the team event, behind Chinese Taipei, Sri Lanka, Japan and Philippines, with a total of 226 points. Shiv Kapur, however, was in the joint lead in the race for the individual gold along with Chinese Taipei's Cheng Chen Liang after returning a card of two under par (70). The cards of the other Indian players read: Manav Das (74), Harendra Prasad (82) and Keshav Mishra (82).

The day also witnessed the end of Indian challenge in judo as Akram Shah failed to get past the first round of the 60kg category, losing to Iranian Masoud Haji Akhondzadeh by an Ippon-Gachi. However, in the Repechage round, Akram had a win over Kuwait's Khaled Aldhafeeri before losing to Uzbekistan's Sanjar Zokirov.

The lone body builder from India, Sanayaima Singh, to be seen in action today too made no impact as he failed to qualify into the second round of the 90 kg category. In equestrian, the team of Indrajit Lamba (Tipsy), Deep Ahlawat (Mirza), Rajesh Pattu (Shahzada) and Bhagirath Singh (Sagar) were placed fourth in the team event with 199.08 penalty points at the end of the second day of the three-day competition. The Indians were placed fifth at the end of the first day.

In sailing, which got underway on Thursday, Nitin Mongia was in the lead of the Ok Dinghy open category after winning both the opening day's races. In the Enterprise Open class, A. Mongia and R. Mahesh was positioned in the second place with four points, while, Rajesh Chaudhary stood third in the Laser Radial Open. In Laser, S. Srikanth was placed fifth with nine points. In the 420 class, Faroke Tarapore and V. Kapila had a bad day today being able to finish eighth at the end of the day. S. Sabir, the Indian entrant, was also placed eighth in the optimist boys category.

In the women's section, R. Jani and A. Jani were in the sixth position with 13 points in the 420 class, while Shilpa Oberoi was seventh in the optimist girls category.

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