New Delhi: The Indian contingent went into the Hangzhou Asian Games aiming to win 100-plus medals.
On a successful Sunday, India’s sportspersons added 15 medals to their overnight tally to take them past the 50-mark. With seven days of competitions still to come in several sports, India’s haul stands at 53 medals – 13 gold, 21 silver and 19 bronze.
They are firmly in fourth spot behind the ‘big three’ – China (132 gold, 243 total), South Korea (30 gold, 125 total) and Japan (29 gold, 112 total).
It was the athletes who had a field day on Sunday, bringing home 9 medals including 2 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze.
Avinash Sable (men’s 3000m steeplechase) and Tajinderpal Singh Toor (men’s shot put) were the icing on the cake, while Jyothi Yarraji’s silver in women’s 100m hurdles was no less creditable as she had to go through an agonising wait before being allowed to run after being wrongly identified for ‘false start’ along with the real ‘culprit’, a Chinese athlete.
The glamorous Harmilan Bains, hailing from a sporting family, did well to claim silver in women’s 1500m.
The shooters continued their brilliant performance at the shooting range, with their men’s trap team striking the seventh gold for the country at these Games.
Golfer Aditi Ashok, who looked on course for gold overnight in the women’s event, had a disappointing final day to be content with silver.
The men’s badminton team, having made history after beating South Korea yesterday to make the final for the first time, raised visions of a memorable gold only to fall short.
Lakshya Sen and the crack pair of Chirag Shetty-Satwik Sairaj handed India a 2-0 advantage against mighty China. But the hosts came roaring back to win the next three matches to seal gold.
LIST OF INDIA’S SUNDAY MEDALLISTS
Avinash Sable – Gold, Men’s 3000m Steeplechase
Tajinderpal Singh Toor – Gold, Men’s Shot Put
Men’s Trap Shooting Team – Gold (Kynan Darius Chenai, Zoravar Singh Sandhu & Prithviraj Tondaiman)
Harmilan Bains – Silver, Women’s 1500 metres
Ajay Kumar Saroj – Silver, Men’s 1500 metres
Jyothi Yarraji – Silver, Women’s 100m hurdles
Murali Sreeshankar – Silver, Men’s Long Jump
Aditi Ashok – Silver, Women’s Golf
Women’s Trap Shooting Team – Silver (Manisha Keer, Preeti Rajak & Rajeshwari Kumari)
Men’s team badminton – Silver (Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth, Chirag Shetty, Satwik Sairaj, Mithun Manjunath, Dhruv Kapila, Sai Pratheek, HS Prannoy).
Nandini Agasara – Bronze, Women’s Heptathlon
Jinson Johnson – Bronze, Men’s 1500 metres
Seema Punia – Bronze, Women’s Discus Throw
Women’s Individual Trap – Bronze (Kynan Darius Chenai )
Nikhat Zareen – Bronze, Women’s 50kg Boxing
