Indian rowers rally, bag two bronze medals

Hangzhou: Indian rowers staged twin comebacks to end the day with two bronze and take their overall tally to five medals in the watersport at the Asian Games here on Monday.

The day began with the quartet of Jaswinder Singh, Bheem Singh, Punit Kumar and Ashish Goliyan narrowly missing a silver in men's fours event.

Then the men's quadruple sculls team of Satnam Singh, Parminder Singh, Jakar Khan and Sukhmeet Singh finished third on the podium with a timing of 6:08.61 seconds, behind Uzbekistan (6:04.64) and gold medallists China (6:02.65).

The quadruple skulls quartet improved from fourth place to finish third in the final 500-metre of the 2000-metre race.

In the men's four event too, after lying fourth in the final 500metre of the 2000m race, the quartet showed superb coordination to finish third with 6:10.81s, and was pipped by China (6:10.04) by a fraction of seconds.

Uzbekistan took the top spot in the podium with a timing of 6:04.96.

Indian rower Balraj Panwar however missed out on a maiden Asian Games podium, finishing fourth in the men's single sculls.

The 24-year-old from Karnal, who was among the top-three at the 1500-mark, faltered in the final 500m to slip to fourth place with a timing of 7:08.79s.

He finished less than nine seconds behind Hong Kong's Hin Chun Chiu who took the bronze medal (7:00.55).

China's Liang Zang secured the gold with 6:57.06, while Japan's Ryuta Arakawa (6:59.79) and Hong Kong's Hin Chun Chiu finished with silver and bronze respectively.

The Indian oarswomen disappointed the most, finishing bottom in the five-team field of the women's eight with a timing of 7:05.71s, way behind China who took the gold medal clocking 6:33.61.

The Indian team of Sonali Swain, Ritu Kaudi, Priya Devi Thangjam, Varsha Kattathara, Aswathi Padinjarayil, Mrunmayee Salgaonkar, Tendenthoi Devi Haobijam, Rukmani and Geetanjali Gurugubelli hardly posed any challenge to their opponents.

Even the fourth-placed Thailand finished more than 15 seconds ahead of the Indians.

Indian rowers have now won two silver and three bronze medals.

India had bagged two silver and a bronze medal on Sunday.