Two gold medals highlighted India's second day at the 2023 Asian Games with the shooters, rowers and the women's cricket team adding six new medals to the country's tally on Monday in Hangzhou.
The day started once again with success at the Fuyang Yinhu Sports Centre with the Men's 10m Air Rifle team of Aishwary Tomar, Rudrankksh Patil and Divyansh Panwar bagging a gold medal. Aishwary then followed it up with a bronze in the individual event before the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Team of Adarsh Singh, Anish Bhanwala and Vijayveer Sidhu wrapped up India's day at the range with a bronze in the team event.
The rowing contingent also continued to impress, winning two more medals on Monday to end their campaign with a total of five medals in Hangzhou.
The day's last medal for India was also a record-maker with the women's cricket team beating Sri Lanka by 19 runs to win a gold medal on the team's debut outing in the games.
India ended the day with a tally of 11 medals, including two golds, three silver and six bronze medals.
Shooters Shine Bright
While the women shooters opened India's account in the sport on Sunday, it was the male shooters who had a stellar day on Monday, winning three medals, including a gold.
The 10m Air Rifle trio of Aishwary Tomar, Rudrankksh Patil and Divyansh Panwar gave India a golden start to the day, shooting a new world record score of 1893.7, improving on the 1893.3 set by China at the ISSF World Cup in Baku in August this year.
At the end of the first round of 10 shots, the Indians were in the second spot with a score of 313.7 while China took the lead with 315.0. The Indians then shot 315.9 in the second round and went from strength to strength with scores of 313.7, 315.9, 318.7 and 315.8 in the next three rounds to finish on top of the standings.
The Indian trio were in such great form that all three finished in the top 8 but as only two shooters from one country were allowed into the final, Tomar and Patil made the cut. They pair fought neck and neck in the final and finished at the same score, needing a shoot-out to decide who gets the third spot. Aishwary Pratap Singh outshot Patil to win the bronze medal.
In the 25m range nearby, the Indian team of Vijayveer Singh Sandhu, Anish and Adarsh Singh bagged the bronze medal in the Men's 25m Rapid Pistol Team competition with 1718 points.
At the end of the first qualifying phase on Sunday, Anish was lying sixth and in the final qualifying spot, after the precision round with a score of 292. Chinese world champion Li Yuehong was leading with a score of 296. Vijayveer Sidhu and Adarsh were further back with scores of 289 and 287 respectively.
In the second phase on Monday, the Indians shot 289, 285 and 276 to eventually finish third.
Rowers Finish With 5 Medals
The rowing competition ended on Monday with India adding two more bronze medals to the tally as the Coxless Fours team of Jaswinder Singh, Bheem Singh, Punit Kumar and Ashish clocked 6:10.81 to finish third after which the Quadruple Sculls team of Satnam Singh, Parminder Singh, Jakar Khan and Sukhmeet Singh also finished third.
India were the defending champions in this discipline, having won the gold medal in the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta. Sukhmeet Singh though was the only rower who was part of the 2018 team.
Gold on Cricket Team's Asian Games Debut
Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues stitched a crucial 73-run partnership, followed by young fast-bowling all-rounder Titas Sadhu bowling a deadly spell of 3-6 in four overs to help India beat Sri Lanka by 19 runs and win the country's first gold medal in the women’s T20 event at the Asian Games.
The gold medal in Asian Games is a huge prize and a historic moment for the Indian women’s cricket team after enduring a heartbreak at last year's Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England, where they ended up with the silver medal after losing to Australia.
Defeat in Tennis, Mixed Outing for Boxers
There were a few setbacks for the Indian contingent on Monday though none bigger than the defeat suffered by the men's doubles pair of Rohan Bopanna and Yuki Bhambri, which crashed out in the second round. Playing their first match after getting a bye in the first round, the experienced pair of Bopanna, ranked 7th in the world, and Bhambri, who has a doubles ranking of 65, lost to Sergey Fomin and Khumoyun Sultanov 6-2, 3-6, (6-10) on Centre Court at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Tennis Stadium.
Bopanna later came out and won the mixed doubles opener in partnership with Rutuja Bhosale. Rutuja advanced in singles and women's doubles too while the country's top women's singles player Ankita Raina handed Sabrina Olimjova of Uzbekistan a double bagle, winning 6-0, 6-0 in less than an hour.
The boxing squad too had a disappointment as Arundhati Chaudhary lost to China's Liu Yang in the women's 66kg first round.
However, World Championship bronze medallist Nishant Dev entered the Round of 16 with a 5-0 win over Nepal's Dipesh Lama in the men's 71kg weight class while Deepak too progressed in the Men's 51kg, entering the Round of 16 with a 5-0 win over Malaysia's Muhammad Abdul Qaiyum.
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