Vijender Singh
It’s the penultimate day of the Asian Games and India is faring fabulously. The Indian sportsperson are going great guns. India has screened its best ever performance winning 64 medals in which 14 are the coveted yellow. The latest one was brought by our dearest star boxer Vijender Singh on Friday. The men’s and women’s Kabbadi teams also clinched gold as they were expected to be. On Friday, India claimed 11 medals and now in total has 14 gold, 17 silver and 33 bronze medals. India stands at the sixth place now.
Whilst, India’s best performance in the Asian Games before this was way back in 1982 when in Delhi India claimed 57 medals(13 gold, 19 silver and 25 bronze), in the previous edition of the games at Doha India stood at 10th position with a tally of 10-17-26. In the present Games, China leads the medal table with 197 gold, 117 silver and 98 bronze (a total of 412).
The women’s 4*400m relay team successfully retained the gold it claimed in Doha at the previous Asian Games. Long distance runner’s Preeja Sreedharan and Kavita Raut also claimed silver and bronze medals respectively in the 5000-m event. India’s men Kabbadi team maintained their unimpeachable track record by winning the gold medal for the sixth time! They demolished the Iran team by a colossal margin of 37-20. The India’s women Kabbadi team had a dream debut as they too wrecked Thailand apart by a huge margin of 28-14 in the finals.
Vijinder added another feather to his cap as he clinched his second gold in the Asian Games. It was a sweet revenge for Olympic and World Champion bronze-medalist Vijender as he blanked the leading world champion Abbos Atoev of Uzbeskistan 7-0. V Santosh Kumar lost 1-16 to Kazakhstan’s Daniyar Yeleussinov and Manpreet Singh went down by 1-8 to Mohammad Ghossoun of Syria. So, eventually they both finished with silver.
Indian Athletic team also fared really well recording their second best performance claiming 5 gold, 2 silver and 4 bronze medals. The best ever was the one at Busan in 2002 when India had 7-6-5 medal haul. India also claimed two bronze medals from roller sports : Anup Kumar Yama in men’s single free skating and with Avani Panchal to finish third in the pairs skating event. Similar was the fate of the Indian chess team of P Harikrishna, Sasikiran Krishnan, Surya Shekar Ganguly and B Adhiban as they also ended with a bronze with a victory over Iran in the ninth and final round.
Tags: Asian Games, Asian Games 2010, Boxing, India, Indian Sports, Kabbadi, Sports, Sports India, Vijender Singh
