2023 Asian Games, Day 9 Wrap: Historic Medal in TT, Six From Athletics & Skating

2023 Asian Games Day 9 wrap: India reached the 60-medals mark in only the ninth day of the competition.

On the 9th day of the 2023 Asian Games, the Indian contingent bagged seven medals - four in athletics, two in skating and a historic medal in table-tennis. Currently, India are placed fourth on the medal tally with 60 medals in their account including 13 gold, 24 silver and 23 bronze.

The day kicked off with the women’s skating quartet of Sanjana Bhatula, Karthika Jagadeeswaran, Heeral Sadhu and Aarathy Kastury winning a bronze medal in speed skating 3000m final.

Aryanpal Ghuman, Anandkumar Velkumar, Siddhant Kamble and Vikram Ingale, too, clinched a bronze in the same event (speed skating 3000m final) in men’s category.

History was scripted as the table-tennis duo of Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ayhika Mukherjee won India's first-ever medal in the TT doubles event in Asian Games as they secured a bronze medal after losing their women's doubles semifinal 3-4 to the North Korean opponents.

Later, in the second half of the day, two medals came in from the steeplechase event. 28-year-old Parul Chaudhary brought home the silver medal in the women's 3000m steeplechase with a time of 9:27.63, while fellow compatriot Priti took away the bronze with a time of 9:43.32. 

Earning the third athletics medal of the day 22-year-old Ancy Sojan Edappilly won the silver medal in women’s long jump with her personal best figure of 6.63m.

The mixed 4x400-metre relay event produced the final medal of the ninth day where the quartet of Muhammed Ajmal, Vithya Ramraj, Rajesh Ramesh and Subha Venkatesan bagged a silver medal.

Here's how the medals tally stands after today:

Note: Medals Tally is updated till 7pm, after India' 4x400 Mixed Relay silver medal

Here’s everything that happened today:

• Athletics

Apart from today’s medal winners, Tejaswin Shankar is in the lead after the first four of the ten events, and a medal in decathlon may be expected from him.

Amlan Borgohain came in sixth place in the men's 200 meter race. With a timing of 20.98 seconds, the 25-year-old National Games gold medalist finished 0.38 seconds behind Japan's Koki Ueyama who won the gold medal.

Pavithra Vengatesh's run in the women's pole vault came to an end as the 21-year-old athlete successfully crossed the 4m-mark, but after three unsuccessful attempts at 4.10m, she bowed out of the competition.

• Badminton

Although the campaign has so far been promising, resulting in a historic silver medal for the men’s team, India had a mixed day at the office in badminton today. 

Sai Pratheek and Tanisha Crasto’s mixed doubles duo qualified for the Round of 16, and so did the pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty in men’s doubles. Kidambi Srikanth too made it through to the Round of 32 of men’s singles.

However, owing to injury troubles, two Indian pairs – that of Arjun Madathil-Dhruv Kapila in men’s doubles, and Rohan Kapoor-Sikki Reddy Nelakurthi in mixed doubles, had to retire from their respective Round of 32 ties.

• Basketball
  

The Indian women’s team suffered a 96-57 defeat against DPR Korea in the quarter-final.

• Canoe

Niraj Verma finished seventh in the men's single canoe 1000m category. The women’s canoe double 500m team finished eighth, and so did the women’s kayak double 500m team and the men’s canoe double 500m team.

• Hockey

In their last group stage fixture, the Indian men’s hockey team handed Bangladesh a 12-0 defeat. Sipper Harmanpreet Singh and Mandeep Singh netted hat-tricks, while Abhishek, the young forward from Haryana, scored a couple of goals. The other goals were scored by Gurjant Singh, Nilakanta Sharma, Amit Rohidas and Lalit Upadhyay.

• Kabaddi

In a thrilling game that came down to the wire, Chinese Taipei's women's kabaddi team held India to a 34-34 draw.

• Squash

In the women's single round of 16, India’s Tanvi Khanna defeated Arichaya Chujit of Thailand 3-0 whereas compatriot Joshana Chinappa lost to South Korea’s Heo Mingyeong.

In the mixed doubles event, the Indian duo of Anahat Singh and Abhay Singh defeated Thailand 2-0.

• Kurash

Both in the men’s and women’s category, India suffered defeats to Iranian athletes.

In the women's 87 kg quarterfinals, India’s Jyoti Tokas lost 0-3 to Iran's Melika Omid Vandchaly and fellow Indian Yash Chauhan was thumped 10-0 by Sadegh Azarang in the men's 90 kg quarters quarterfinals.

• Sepaktakraw

Philippines women handed India a 2-0 defeat in their tie match.

• Diving 

Hemam London Singh finished in the 12th position in the men's 1m springboard event with a total of 207.80 points.