Khade betters record, misses bronze
Despite clocking careerbest time, swimmer loses out by 100th of a second to finish 4th in 50m freestyle
JAKARTA:THE saying, there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip, came true for Virdhawal Khade, who missed bronze by 100th of a second in 50m freestyle here on Tuesday.
Khade, who bettered his longstanding national record (22.43 seconds) in the heats earlier in the day, clocked 22.47 seconds to finish fourth. China’s Yu Hexin (22.11s), Japan’s Nakamaura Katsumi (22.20s) and Nakao Shunichi (22.46s) bagged gold, silver and bronze respectively.
Khade had set 22.52 as his best in August 2009 at the Asian Age Group Swimming Championships in Japan.
He did his best at the GBK Aquatic Centre here but was disappointed at missing out on a medal. A bronze medallist at the Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010, Khade was off the blocks in no time but couldn’t touch the finish line ahead of the top three.
“After finishing fastest in the eight-man heat, I was targeting gold as it was possible. Nothing went wrong and this was the best I could do, but a medal would have been good here,” he said.
It’s a great achievement for Khade, who returned to the sport after a lengthy break before this year’s Commonwealth Games at Gold Coast, where he clocked 23.11. “There was no swimming pool at Malvan in Maharashtra so I couldn’t train when I was posted there. I started training when I came back to Mumbai. Had I enough time to train, I could have won a medal,” said Khade, a revenue inspector with the Maharashtra government.
BOPANNA-SHARAN ENTER QUARTERS
PALEMBANG: Top seeds Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan breezed into the men’s doubles quarter-finals while Ankita Raina entered the last eight of the women’s singles at the Asian Games here today.
Raina, ranked 189, overpowered world No 243 Eri Hozumi 6-1, 6-2 in a round of 16 clash. Compatriot Karman Kaur Thandi, however, lost to En-shuo Liang of Chinese Taipei 6-2, 4-6, 6-7(4) in the pre quarter-finals.
However, India had a good day in the men’s doubles as both its pairings reached the quarterfinals. Bopanna and Sharan sailed past Thailand’s Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul and Nuttanon Kadchapanan 6-3, 6-1 in another round of 16 match.
Ramakumar Ramanathan and Sumit Nagal put up a spirited show to outlast Taipei’s fourth seeds Chen Ti and Peng Hsienyin 7-6(5), 7-6 (2).
KABADDI TEAMS REACH LAST FOUR STAGE
JAKARTA: The Indian men’s and women’s kabaddi teams secured emphatic wins against their respective opponents to qualify for the semi-finals of the Asian Games here on Tuesday.
The men’s team, a seven-time gold-medallist, bounced back from the shock 23-24 defeat against South Korea to beat Thailand 49-30 in its fourth and final Group A match. It had beaten Bangladesh 50-21 and Sri Lanka 44-28 before losing to South Korea.
In the women’s competition, India played two matches and emerged victorious in both to top Group A with an all-win record and qualify for the semifinals.
In the first match of the day, the Indian women’s team defeated Sri Lanka 38-12 before trouncing Indonesia 54-22 in its final group match.
BHOKANAL QUALIFIES FOR SCULLS FINAL
PALEMBANG: Dattu Baban Bhokanal qualified for the men’s single sculls final round while the men’s lightweight four team also made it to the title race in the rowing competition of the Asian Games here on Tuesday.
Bhokanal topped heat No 1 repechage round of the men’s singles scull with a time of 7:45.71 to qualify for the final.
The men’s lightweight four team of Bhopal Singh, Jagvir Singh, Tejas Shinde and Pranay Naukarkar made it to the final round after finishing second in the repechage heat with a time of 6:51.88. The final will be held on August 23. JAKARTA: Promised a beach party on Wednesday, the India women’s hockey team got into the mood a day prior beating Kazakhstan 21-0 in a Pool B league match of the Asian Games.
The Asia Cup champions didn’t miss skipper Rani Rampal to script the second best score in the Games history. Not since India beating Hong Kong 22-0 in the 1982 Asian Games has a team notched up a win this facile. How wide the chasm was between India and their opponents could be gauged by the 7-1 win when they last met, in the 2017 Asia Cup.
That gap seemed to have got wider as India scored at regular intervals after taking seven minutes to open their account.
That happened when Gurjit Kaur converted team’s third penalty corner with a quick push. Thereafter, it was raining goals.
Gurjit got three more (36’ penalty stroke, 44’ and 52’). Lalremsiami (9’, 19’, 30’), Navneet Kaur (11’, 12’, 49’), Vandana Katariya (29’, 37’, 53’) all got hattricks, Navjot Kaur (16’, 54’), Lilima Minz (38’, 44’) got a brace each with