Indian hockey’s gold dream crushed by clinical Japan
FALLING SHORT Women’s team fails to repeat its 1982 golden performance as they go down 21
the Japanese. They also earned the first penalty corner but Gurjit Kaur’s attempt was blocked by Japanese goalkeeper Megumi Kageyama.
Japan, ranked 14th in FIH rankings, punished India, ranked 9th, earned their first penalty corner in the 11th minute and made it count when Minami Shimizu deflected in a flick by Mayumi Ono. Vandana had a chance to level scores but missed a shot. Japan led 1-0 at the end of the first quarter.
The Indians did not lose heart and though Japan managed to maintain a slight edge in the early parts of the second quarter, India mainly looked for counter attacks and capitalised on one such chance five minutes before half-time. Skipper Rani along with Navneet Kaur launched a swift counter from the left flank.
With the Japanese defenders scrambling back to guard the goal, Navneet beat the goalkeeper with a superb reverse hit, creating one of the easiest chances for Neha Goyal to deflect the ball into an open goal. The score read 1-1 at the long breather.
India continued to play well in the third quarter and created couple of chances but again it was Japan which scored against the run of the play to take 2-1 lead in the 44th minute. Motomu Kawamura placed a superb shot off an indirect penalty corner routine as the Indian defenders failed to get into correct position. The quarter actually belonged to the Indians till that time as they created couple of good chances to score but both Udita an dvandana Katariya were thwarted by Japanese goalkeeper Kageyama.
OLYMPIC BERTH
Japan’s gold on Friday means the quota place from Asian Games will now be included in the Olympic Qualifying event, from which seven teams will now qualify for Tokyo. The Olympics Qualification Events will be a series of back-to-back bilateral matches involving top two nations in each of the three Hockey Series Finals, top four nations from the Hockey Pro League and best ranked nations in FIH World Rankings that have not qualified.
A bitter court battle almost forced Varsha Gautham to quit but perseverance helped her to tide over the crisis and clinch a silver medal with partner Sweta Shervegar in sailing at the Asian Games on Friday.
Besides a silver, India also won two bronze medals.
Competing in 49erfx, the 20-year-old Varsha and her crew partner Sweta Shervegar, completed the 15-race event with 40 net points to finish second behind winners Lim Min Kimberly and Low Rui UI Qi Cecilia from Singapore, who had 14 net points.
Sailors are given points after each race, and the pair, which gets the least points, is declared the winner.
TWO BRONZE MEDALS
Harshita Tomar claimed bronze in Open Laser 4.7. Harshita, just 16, totalled 62 after race 12 to finish third.
The third medal was won by Ashok Varun Thakkar and Chengappa Ganapathy Kelapanda who won bronze in the 49er men’s event with a total of 53 after race 15.
Varsha and Sweta were initially not chosen by the Yachting Association of India in 49erfx event and it was only after a court battle that they could make it to the Indonesian capital.
“These were stressful three months. But everything has paid
JAPAN’S COMPOSED AND DETERMINED DISPLAY SAW THEM SURGE AHEAD TWICE AS INDIA FAILED TO CAPITALISE ON GOAL SCORING CHANCES.