Incheon: India’s rowers provided the spark with a couple of bronze medals, while the unfancied women’s shooters added another bronze as India maintained their 15th position in the overall standings with a tally of 15 in the 17th Asian Games here on Thursday.
Armyman Swaran Singh Virk rowed his way through exhaustion to a third spot in the single sculls, before the men’s squad added the eights title on yet another mixed day for the Indian contingent.
The double trap women’s team of Shagun Chowdhary, Shreyasi Singh and Varsha Varman brought some cheer for the largely off the mark shooters with their bronze medal on the sixth day of competition.
India were assured of a silver in archery, while the squash players were also assured of a bronze each in the men’s and women’s team events after making the semi-finals.
With Thursday’s additions, India were placed 15th on the medals table with one gold, a silver and 13 bronzes.
In badminton, star shuttlers Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap advanced to the round of last and last 16 respectively, but P.V. Sindhu bowed out after losing in the preliminary stage.
Rowers were, however, the stars of Thursday’s proceedings for India.
As the rowing events ended at the ChungjuTangeum Lake International Rowing Centre, India’s modest tally of medals stood at three bronze, the first having been won on Wednesday by Dushyant Chauhan in the men’s lightweight single sculls.
The performance was lower in both quality as well as quantity to the 2010 tally of one gold, three silvers and a bronze.
Naik Subedar Swaran Singh must be complimented for putting up a brave effort. The timing he clocked here to win the bronze covering the 2,000 metres distance (7min, 10.65sec) was better than his performance at the London Olympic Games two years ago (7:29.66).
