Sunita Rani laps up bronze in late charge

Indian middle distance sensation Sunita Rani added 5,000m bronze to her gold in the 1,500m as the athletics competition reached the climax i...

Indian middle distance sensation Sunita Rani added 5,000m bronze to her gold in the 1,500m as the athletics competition reached the climax in the Asian Games here on Saturday.

Sunita may have ended third in the event but it was a brilliant performance by the lanky Punjab Police officer as she clocked 15:18.27s to erase her own national mark by a huge margin.

Gopi takes the shuttle back

A totally colourless Indian star Pulella Gopichand was knocked out of the men’s singles quarter-finals in the Asian Games here on Saturday. The former All-England champion was not in his usual form.
In fact it could have been his worst match in the international arena in an otherwise brilliant career spanning more than a decade. Gopi lost 9-15, 11-5 to South Korean Shon Seung Mo in just about 50 minutes. The only time Gopi led was briefly early in the second game.
Reaching just two days before the tournament began, Gopi was looking tired. he did not have enough time to even accalamitse to the surroundings.
—Norris Pritam

Incidentally her performance was also bettered the existing Games mark. In fact all the top five girl smashed the mark as Chinese Sun Yingjie led the pack with 14:40.41 for the gold. Kuldeep Kumar finished seventh in 1,500m and Hardeep Kaur finished fourth in hammer. The Indian quartet of Jata Shankar, Paramjit Singh, Satbir Singh and Bhupender Singh made it to the final of the 4x400m relay. On Sunday, Anju George in triple jump and the women’s 4x400m relay are likely to add gold. Discus thrower Anil Kumar and high jumper Bobby Aloysius are also likely to be among the medallists.

Spikers beat Taipei, finish fifth

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Meanwhile, India defeated Chinese Taipei 25-23, 25-21, 18-25, 34-32 to finish fifth in men’s volleyball. India could well have repeated their third place finish in Seoul 12 years ago — their best showing at the Games.

However, after Mohammed Imran crashed out of the taekwondo competition when he lost his third round match to Al Asmar Ali of Jordan in the men’s 62kg bantam weight, Indian hope of a medal in the event was dashed. In the women section (-55 kg), Sagolsem Nanao failed to cross the first hurdle. In karate-do, Damang Syngkon went down 3-9 to Korea’s Seong Hun Jeong.