The Indian duo clocked 6 minutes, 28.18 seconds to finish behind China’s Junjie Fan and Man Sun, who won gold in 6:23.16. Uzbekistan’s Shakhzod Nurmatov and Sobirjon Safaroliyev bagged the bronze in 6:33.42.
Hangzhou: In a rollicking start, India’s rowers powered their way to three medals in the Asian Games here onMonday, Sept 25, a PTI report in The Tribune, Chandigarh, says
With conditions just perfect for rowing at the Fuyang Water Sports Centre, Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh opened the country’s account with a silver medal in the men’s lightweight doubles sculls event.
The Indian duo clocked 6 minutes, 28.18 seconds to finish behind China’s Junjie Fan and Man Sun, who won gold in 6:23.16. Uzbekistan’s Shakhzod Nurmatov and Sobirjon Safaroliyev bagged the bronze in 6:33.42.
Arjun said they were disappointed to not achieve their personal best. “Gold was the target but we did our best today. We could not do our personal best of 6:19, which we did at our Army nodal centre in Pune,” said Arjun.
Arvind said an injury two months ago hampered his training. “We missed training for 20 to 25 days as I had lower-back pain two months back. Our aim was to win gold but because of my injury, I wasn’t able to push myself as much,” he said. “We will now work for Paris and then try to win gold at the 2026 Asian Games,” he added.
Arjun and Arvind have been training together for the last four years and it showed in their coordination. “We had been training for this (event) continuously for the past four years. We had made it to the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympics,” said Arjun.
Strength in numbers
The silver was just a precursor of the things to come as the men’s eight event saw an intense tussle between China and India before the host team pulled away to win gold in clocked 5:40.17. India finished second in 5:43.01. Indonesia, who clocked 5:45.51, were third.
The Indian team comprised Neeraj, Nareskh Kalwaniya, Neetish Kumar, Charanjeet Singh, Jaswinder Singh, Bheem Singh, Puneet Kumar and Ashish. “The race went according to plan,” said Dhananjay Uttam Pande, the coxswain in the team.
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