India secured five medals on the first day of the 2023 Asian Games, which has placed them in seventh position on the medals tally. Two of those medals came in shooting, with the other three coming in shooting.
The day started off with a silver medal in women’s 10m air rifle team event, secured by the trio of Mehuli Ghosh, Ramita Jindal and Ashi Chouksey. With a total score of 1886.0, they finished in the second position, narrowly behind the Chinese trio’s score of 1896.6.
A second medal in shooting soon followed, with Ramita securing third place in women’s 10m air rifle individual event. A score of 230.1 earned her the bronze medal, whilst her Indian teammate, Mehuli Ghosh finished fourth with a score of 208.3.
The first medal in rowing came in the men’s lightweight double sculls event, wherein the pair of Arvind Singh and Arjun Lal Jat – two Indian Army officials hailing from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan respectively – clocked a timing of 6:28.18, finishing 5.02s behind the winners.
The second medal came in men’s coxless pair, with Babulal Yadav and Lekh Ram securing a bronze medal with their timing of 6:50.41. To conclude what has been an excellent day for the Indian rowing community, the men’s coxed eight team won a silver medal, narrowly missing out on gold by 2.84s.
The team included Jaswinder Singh, Bheem Singh, Punit Kumar, Ashish, Neeraj, Naresh Kalwaniya, Neetish Kumar, Charanjeet Singh and Dhananjay Pande.
Other Results
Let’s have a look at what happened elsewhere:
Aquatics: Srihari Nataraj qualified for the final of men’s 100m backstroke, where he finished in sixth position. Meanwhile, the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay team of Maana Patel, Shivangi Sharma, Jahnvi Choudhary and Dhinidhi Desinghu finished seventh in their final round.
Boxing: World champion Nikhat Zareen had an absolutely flawless start to her campaign, as she brushed her Vietnamese opponent, Nguyen Thi Tam aside with a 5-0 victory.
Cricket: The women’s cricket team assured a medal by handing Bangladesh a comprehensive eight-wicket defeat in the semi-final. They will now face Sri Lanka in the gold medal match.
Fencing: Taniksha Khatri was the only Indian fencer to make it to the quarter-finals, where she was handed a defeat by Vivian Kong in women’s individual epee. In men’s individual foil, Bibish Kathireshan made it to the round of 16 before losing out.
Hockey: The Indian men’s hockey team started their group stage campaign on the perfect note, securing a 16-0 win over Uzbekistan.
Football: It was a mixed day for India as while the women’s team was eliminated after a 0-1 defeat to Thailand, a 1-1 draw against Myanmar was enough for the men’s team to secure a round of 16 place.
Wushu: Sunil Singh Mayanglambam was defeated by Arnel Mandal in the quarter-final of men’s 56kg, while he finished fifth in men’s chengquan, a place ahead of Arjun Namdeo.
Esports: The two FIFA Online 4 players, Charanjot Singh and Karman Singh were handed defeats in the latter stages.
Modern Pentathlon: India’s sole participant in this sport, Mayank Chaphekar finished in the 27th position.
Rugby Sevens: The women’s team was handed a 0-45 defeat by Japan.
Table Tennis: The women’s team was defeated 2-3 by Thailand in their round of 16 clash. The men’s team defeated Kazakhstan 3-0 to qualify for quarter-finals, where they lost 0-3 against South Korea.
Lawn Tennis: Sumit Nagal defeated Macau’s Ho Tin Marco Leung 6-0, 6-0. In men’s doubles, the pair of Sakesth Myneni and Ramkumar Ramanathan defeated Nepal’s Abhishek Bastola and Pradip Khadka 6-2, 6-3.
Volleyball: After a stunning run, the men’s team was defeated 0-3 by the formidable Japanese side.
Medals Tally
At the end of the first day, India are seventh on the medals tally. China, South Korea and Japan occupy the first three places respectively.
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