Asian Games: India slip to 16th despite a silver and a bronze on Day 7

September 27, 2014

Incheon, Sep 27: The men's pistol team clinched a silver medal, while Sandeep Sejwal scooped a rare bronze in swimming but India slipped to the 16th position in the overall standings with a tally of 17 medals on the seventh day of competitions in the 17th Asian Games on Friday.

Vijay KumarThe pistol team, spearheaded by London Olympic Games silver medallist Vijay Kumar and including Pemba Tamang and Gurpreet Singh, clinched the second place with a total score of 1740, two behind gold medallists China, in the 25m centre fire pistol competition.

The 25-year-old Sejwal provided some much-needed boost to the Indian swimming contingent by grabbing a bronze in the 50m breaststroke event after topping his heats.

There was some more good news from the squash arena after both the men's and women's teams were assured of at least silver medals after making the finals of their respective competitions.

On the whole, it again turned out to be a day of mixed fortunes for the Indian contingent which saw its star shuttlers Saina Nehwal and Parupalli Kashyap being knocked out of the singles competition along with the archers, who bowed out of the individual recurve event.

The women's hockey team kept themselves in medal contention with a 6-1 win over Malaysia.

With the addition of two more medals, India dropped a rung to 16th in the tally with a haul of one gold, two silver and 14 bronze medal so far. China continued to be at the top with 179 medals (91-49-39), followed by South Korea (31-37-36) and Japan (30-42-35).

The day started rather well with the shooters delivering a silver. In fact, had the men's trio equalled the Chinese, they would have secured a gold as their number of inner tens was much higher than their formidable rivals.

Vijay took part here despite being troubled by cervical spondylitis for which he is set to undergo surgery soon after returning home.

It was the eighth medal that the shooters have won from the Games -- one gold, one silver and six bronze medals -- all but two of them coming in team events.

Barring Jitu Rai, only Abhinav Bindra has managed to win an individual medal in Incheon, an indication of how competitive shooting has been.

The Indian women's team, comprising Lajja Gauswami, 44-year-old Anjali Bhagwat and Tejaswini Muley finished sixth in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Team Finals.

Indian squash players, however, continued their splendid showing. If the women's team comprising Joshna Chinappa, Dipika Pallikal and Anaka Alankamony outplayed their South Korean opponents 2-0 then Mahesh Mangaonkar, Saurav Ghosal and Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu also eased past Kuwait 2-0.

Ghosal has already added a historic silver to the medal list -- a first in the Asian Games squash -- in the men's singles event, though the Kolkata-born player was disappointed to lose the gold to Kuwait's Abdullah Almezayen.

Dipika, on the other hand, has won a bronze medal in the women's singles event, also a first for Indian squash.

In the swimming pool, Sejwal topped his heats by clocking 28.25s before holding on to the third spot in the final race with a timing of 28.26s.

It was a bitter-sweet day in the boxing ring where continental champion Shiva Thapa (56kg) was barely tested as he advanced to the quarterfinals but it was curtains for comeback-man Akhil Kumar (60kg) after he lost an edge-of-the-seat last-16 bout.

Also advancing to the quarterfinals was multiple-times national champion Kuldeep Singh (81kg) at the Seonhak Gymnasium.

However, in what came as a shock for the Indian badminton fans, Saina and Kashyap fell by the wayside after losing their respective women's and men's singles matches.

Commonwealth Games gold medallist Kashyap failed to pass the Asiad test as he lost to World No.1 Lee Chong Wei 0-2 in the pre-quarterfinals at the Gyeyang Gymnasium, while Saina fizzled out after winning the first game against China's Yihan Wang 21-18 9-21 7-21 in her quarterfinal encounter.

India's K Srikanth also lost out in the men's singles pre-quarterfinals after losing a hard-fought battle against Wanho Son of South Korea 2-1 in an hour and seven minutes.

It was heartbreak for India's mixed doubles pair of B Sumeeth Reddy and Manu Attri, who lost a hard fought battle in the quarterfinals against Singapore duo of Danny Bawa Chrisnanta and Yu Yan Vanessa Neo 21-18 21-23 21-15 in under 50 minutes.

In the men's doubles quarterfinals, Attri and Sumeeth Reddy were outplayed by the Indonesian pair of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan 21-12 21-19 in 32 minutes.

The fancied Indian recurve archers cut a sorry figure in the individual events but the country is still in with a chance of bagging a bronze medal in the women's team category.

The women's recurve team -- comprising Deepika Kumari, L Bombayla Devi and Laxmirani Majhi -- is still in fray for a medal after making the semifinals.

In tennis, Sanam Singh recovered from a sluggish start to move to the men's singles quarterfinals and later combined with Saketh Myneni to seal a place in the men's doubles last-eight as well.

Ranked just inside top-400 at 397, Sanam beat 190th ranked Chung, 7-5 6-1 the third round, which lasted one hour and 24 minutes at Yeorumul Tennis Courts.

Also advancing to the men's singles last-eight was Yuki Bhambri, who defeated Indonesia's Christopher Rungkat 6-3 6-3 in one hour and 30 minutes in his third round contest.

A similar dominating performance was dished out by fifth seeds Sania Mirza and Prarthana Thombare in the women's doubles second round as they blanked Mongolia's Bolor Enkhbayar and Gotov Dulguunjargal 6-0 6-0 in just 35 minutes.

However, Ankita Raina had a disappointing outing as she crashed out of women's singles with a 2-6 6-4 1-6 defeat against fourth seed Japanese Eri Hozumi in the third round, lasting one hour and 55 minutes.

With Ankita's defeat, India's challenge has ended in women's singles. Ankita, though, is still in fray in the mixed doubles with Divij Sharan.

In hockey, the Indian women's team produced an inspired performance to thrash Malaysia 6-1 to qualify for the semi-finals.

For India, Rani Rampal (4th minute, 20th) and Jaspreet Kaur (9th, 39th) score two goals each, while Namita Toppo (17th) and Vandana Kataria (50th) were the other goal getters.

Malaysia's lone goal was scored by skipper Nadia Abdul Rahman from a penalty corner.

Indian eves in all likelihood will face last edition's silver medallist Korea in the semi-finals on Sunday as the hosts are presently leading Pool B and are expected to finish as the toppers.

On the golf course, Udayan Mane tamed the windy conditions to put himself in medal contention with a superb six-under 66, which left him tied third at the midway stage.

Mane, one of the four players to card 66 in the second round, is eight-under 136 and three shots behind the new leader local 17-year-old lad Youm Eunho.

But there was disappointment in volleyball. Indian men spikers gave a gritty fight against last edition's silver medallists Iran before going down in straight games in their final preliminary round match.

The Indians, who have already advanced to the next round (Play-off Group stage) after winning their earlier two matches, lost 22-25 22-25 18-25 against their more fancied opponents in a 71-minute Group C preliminary round contest at Songnim Gymnasium.

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News Network
January 19,2020

Rome, Jan 19: India's star wrestlers Bajrang Punia and Ravi Kumar Dahiya kicked off the Olympic year in style, winning a gold medal each in their respective weight categories at the Rome Ranking Series here.

The 25-year-old Bajrang staged a remarkable comeback to secure a 4-3 win against USA's Jordan Michael Oliver in the summit showdown of the 65kg freestyle category.

Ravi, who competed in the 61kg category instead of his regular 57kg, also bagged gold after getting the better of Kazakhstan's Nurbolat Abdualiyev 12-2 in his final bout late on Saturday night.

The 23-year-old from Sonepat had made the final round after securing impressive wins over Moldova's Alexaandru Chirtoaca and Kazakhstan's Nurislam Sanayev.

Up against one of India's biggest medal prospects in the Tokyo Olympics, Oliver conceded that it was not his night against Bajrang.

The American lauded the competitive spirit of Bajrang.

"Wasn't my night… but I got a lot of work to do to be where I want to be! Hats off to @BajrangPunia dude is heck of a competitor! Until next time my friend," the American tweeted.

Bajrang had to sweat it out in the first round against Zain Allen Retherford of the USA before prevailing 5-4.

In the quarterfinal, the ace Indian wrestler went past another American Joseph Christopher Mc Kenna 4-2, before getting the better of Vasyl Shuptar of Ukraine 6-4 in the semi-finals.

However, it was curtains for Jitender in the 74kg and world championship silver medallist Deepak Punia in the 86kg category.

Jitender won his first bout against Denys Pavlov of Ukraine 10-1 before going down in the quarterfinals against Turkey's Soner Demirtas 4-0.

Jitender got a chance to fight in the repechage after Demirtas entered the final, but the Indian wasted the opportunity, losing 2-9 to Daniyar Kaisanov of Kazakhstan.

In the 86kg category, Deepak crashed out in the opening round, losing 1-11 to Ethan Adrian Ramos of Puerto Rico.

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News Network
March 16,2020

Mar 16: With COVID-19 outbreak killing over 5,400 people globally, former Pakistan cricketer Shoaib Akhtar has lashed out at those responsible for making the coronavirus infect humans and blamed China solely for the outbreak.

"I don't understand why you have to eat things like bats, drink their blood and urine and spread some virus across the globe...I'm talking about the Chinese people. They have put the world at stake. I really don't understand how you can eat bats, dogs, and cats. I'm really angry," Akhtar said in a video posted on his Youtube channel.

"The whole world is at risk now. The tourism industry has been hit, the economy is badly affected and the whole world is going towards a lockdown.

"I'm not against the people of China but I'm against the law of animals. I understand this may be your culture but this is not benefitting you now, it is killing humanity. I'm not saying you boycott the Chinese but there has to be some law. You cannot go on and eat anything and everything," he added.

Coronavirus, which originated in China's Wuhan city, has so far spread to more than 100 countries, infecting over 1,30,000 people.

In Pakistan, the number of positive cases reached 28 on Saturday.

Many sporting events, including the Indian Premier League (IPL) and Pakistan Super League (PSL), have been affected by the disease which has now been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

While the IPL 2020, which was originally scheduled to start from March 29, has been postponed till April 15, the playoff stage of PSL has been curtailed and will be played behind closed doors.

"The biggest reason for anger is PSL...Cricket returned to Pakistan after so many years, the PSL was happening in our country for the first time now even that is at risk. The foreign players are leaving, it will take place behind closed doors," said Akhtar.

The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases across India has crossed 80 while two people have lost their lives due to the deadly disease. But Akhtar did not have the information and added: "God forbid the virus doesn't reach India. There are around 130 crore people there. I've been in touch with my friends in India and wishing them well."

In PSL, there will be no playoffs and the top four teams will now play semi-finals and then the final on March 17 and 18. The final was originally scheduled to be held on March 22.

"I've also heard that IPL has been postponed till April 15. The hotel industries, travel industries, broadcasters everything will incur losses because of this," he said.

The former Pakistan pacer also called on the world authorities to come out with a new animal protection law so that such diseases don't resurface in the future.

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News Network
March 12,2020

New Delhi, Mar 12: No foreign player will be available for this year's IPL till April 15 due to visa restrictions imposed by the government to contain the novel coronavirus threat, a top BCCI source told PTI on Thursday, casting fresh doubts on the fate of the event.

"The foreign players who play in the IPL come under the Business Visa category. As per the government's directive, they can't come till April 15," a BCCI source told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

The government issued fresh advisory with a ban on all existing foreign visas, except a few categories like diplomatic and employment, till April 15 in the wake of new positive cases of novel coronavirus in the country.

India has reported 60 positive cases in the outbreak which has led to over 4,000 deaths globally.

The fate of the IPL itself will be decided on March 14 at the event's Governing Council meeting in Mumbai. "All decisions will be taken by the GC in Mumbai," the source said.

Having the IPL, starting March 29, played in empty stadiums is an option being explored.

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