19th Asian Games Hangzhou: No ‘I’ in team

Hangzhou, September 28

The men’s 10m air pistol team extended India’s impressive show at the Asian Games by shooting down another gold but individual success eluded Sarabjot Singh and Arjun Singh Cheema, who fizzled out in the final here today.

The team of Sarabjot, Cheema and Shiva Narwal narrowly beat the Chinese team to take the top spot.

With today’s success, the Indian shooters have now won four gold, four silver and five bronze medals.

We had a really good team spirit. Good relationship, nice team. They’ve (Sarabjot and Shiva) played really well. We spend a lot of time together. We have our national camps, national training sessions. In fact, we are together the whole year. —Arjun Singh Cheema

The Indian trio’s aggregate score of 1,734 was just one better than the silver-winning Chinese team (1,733) as Vietnam (1,730) bagged bronze. Sarabjot and Cheema also made it to the eight-shooter individual finals but finished fourth and eighth, respectively. Vietnam’s Pham Quang Huy won gold with a score of 240.5, while South Korea’s Lee Wonho (239.4) and Uzbekistan’s Vladimir Svechnikov (219.9) took silver and bronze, respectively. The 21-yer-old Sarabjot scored 199, while Arjun ended up eighth and last, exiting on the second elimination shot.

Birthday boy

Sarabjot, who will be celebrating his 22nd birthday on Saturday, gave himself an early birthday gift as he led the air pistol trio to team gold, scoring 580 in the qualification round, while Cheema shot a 578 and Narwal amassed 576 to aggregate 1,734. In the qualification round, the aggregate score of which decides the team medallists, Sarabjot shot cards of 95, 95, 97, 98, 97 and 98 to aggregate 580 and entered the final at the fifth place.

Teammate Cheema shot a series of 97, 96, 97, 97, 96 and 95 for his 578 to also make final in the eighth place.

Narwal, the younger brother of the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics gold medallist Manish, could not make it to the individual final as he finished 14th. Narwal shot a series of 92, 96, 97, 99, 97 and 95 for his 576.

A jubilant Cheema said the team medal was the result of extensive training together.

“We had a really good team spirit. Good relationship, nice team. They’ve (Sarabjot and Shiva) played really well. We spend a lot of time together. We have our national camps, national training sessions. We are friends, family… everything. We support each other. We have great time together,” said Cheema.

In the mixed team skeet event, Ganemat Sekhon and Anant Jeet Singh Naruka failed to qualify for the final, finishing 7th. — PTI

Live on sony sports

Indians in action

Athletics (4:30am onwards)

Men’s 20km: Vikash Singh, Sandeep Kumar; Women’s 20km: Priyanka Goswami; Women’s shot put: Manpreet Kaur, Kiran Baliyan; Women’s hammer throw: Tanya Chaudhary, Rachna Kumari; Women’s 400m heats: Himanshi Malik, Aishwarya Mishra; Men’s 400m heats: Muhammed Anas, Muhammed Ajmal

Badminton

Women’s team semifinal 6:30am

Men’s team semifinal 2:30pm

BOXING

Women’s 57kg Rd of 16:

Parveen 12pm; Men’s 80kg Rd of 16: Lakshya Chahar 1:45pm; Women’s 50kg quarterfinals: Nikhat Zareen 4:45pm

CHESS

(12:30pm onwards)

Round 1 of team events

Hockey

Women’s Pool A:

India vs Malaysia 4pm

Golf

(4am onwards)

Women’s individual and team Round 1: Pranavi Urs, Avani Prashanth, Aditi Ashok; Men’s team Round 1: Anirban Lahiri,

SSP Chawrasia, Khalin Joshi, Shubhankar Sharma

Shooting

(6:30am onwards)

Men’s 50m rifle 3 positions: Swapnil Kusale, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Akhil Sheoran; Women’s 10m air pistol: Palak, Esha Singh, Divya TS

Squash

Women’s team semifinal 8:30am

Men’s team semifinal 1:30pm

Swimming

(7:30am onwards)

Table Tennis

(7:30am onwards)

Women’s singles Rd of 16:

Manika Batra

Men’s singles Rd of 32:

Sharath Kamal, G Sathiyan

Men’s doubles Rd of 32:

Manush Shah & Vikash Thakkar, Sharath Kamal & G Sathiyan

Women’s doubles Rd of 32: Sutirtha Mukherjee & Ayhika Mukherjee, Sreeja Akula & Diya Chitale

Tennis

Men’s doubles final: Ramkumar Ramanathan & Saketh Myneni 7:30am

Mixed doubles semifinals: Rohan Bopanna (in pic) & Rutuja Bhosale 9:30am