India bag a silver in shooting;
bronze in rowing

India's medal hunt at the Asian Games gathered momentum on Wednesday, with the women's shooting team winning a silver in the 10 metres Air Rifle event and the men's rowing team coming up with a bronze in the coxless four-oars.

After the gold medal in snooker doubles on Tuesday, India have one gold, one silver and one bronze medal.

The Indian team, comprising Suma Shirur, Anjali Bhagwat and Deepali Deshpande, bettered the previous Asian record but still had to be content with a silver in the event, which was won by the Chinese team with a new world record.

The Indians scored a total of 1187 points to finish seven points adrift of Chinese team of Li Du, Zhao Yinghui and Jing Goa, who scored 1194 points.

Suma Shirur scored 397 points while Anjali and Deepali fired 396 and 394 respectively. The South Korean team took the bronze with a total of 1183 points.

Anjali, however, missed the bronze in the individual event by just 0.1 points. She scored 396 in the preliminary rounds and 104.5 in the final for an aggregate of 500.5 and finished fourth.

The gold was won by Zhao Yinghui of China, who tallied 501.4 points, while compatriot Gao Jing took silver, with 501.0 points. Park Un Kyong of South Korea won the bronze with a total of 500.6 points.

Suma finished fifth in the same event with 499.9 points (397+102.9) while Deepali failed to make it to the final round after scoring 394 in the preliminaries.

Ace shooter Abhinav Bindra disappointed, finishing seventh in his favourite 10 metres air rifle event, scoring 694.3 points (593+101.3). The gold was won by Ll Jie of China with 700.8 points.

Bindra teamed up with Sameer Ambekar and Bharat Singh in the 10 metres air rifle and finished fourth with a total of 1764 points.

In the 50 metres air pistol event, the Indian team finished a poor eighth, with Samaresh Jung (556), Ved Prakash (539) and Tapas Kumar Sikdar (525) managing 1620 points.

In coxless fours event of rowing, the Indian team, comprising Jenil Krishnan, Inder Pal Singh, Roshan Lal and P T Paulose, finished third with a timing of seven minutes 2.91 seconds to win the bronze.

The gold was won by the Chinese team, who clocked in six minutes 46.25 seconds, while Uzbekistan took the silver in six minutes 58.79 seconds.

The Indians narrowly missed the medal in two other rowing events. Jamaluddin Jamaluddin, in men's lightweight single sculls, and Pere Karoba, in the women's single sculls, missed the bronze medal by about three seconds each.

Jamaluddin clocked 7:27.80 seconds while Karoba timed 9:55.79 seconds.

In the women's coxless fours, the Indian team of Jincymol Verghese, Monalisa Mohanty, Sobhni Rajan and Julee Verghese finished sixth with a time of 8:36.66.