Thaindian News

Guangzhou, Nov 26 (IANS) The women’s 4X400 metres relay quartet and the men’s and women’s kabaddi teams won golds at the Asian Games here Friday to take the country’s tally to 13. With a silver and four bronzes also coming India’s way, the country’s overall medal tally rose to 61, the highest after the 1982 New Delhi Asian Games.

India’s 61 medals comprise 13 gold, 15 silver and 33 bronze. India had won 57 medals (13-19-25) at the 1982 Games.

The quartet of Manjeet Kaur, Sini Jose, Ashwini Chidananda and Mandeep Kaur, which won the gold in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, came on top here clocking 3:29.02 seconds.

Kazakhstan (Marina Maslyonko, Viktoriya Yalovtseva, Margarita Matsko, Olga Tereshkova) got the silver in 3:30.03 and China (Zhihui Zheng, Xiaoyin Tang, Lian Chen, Jingwen Chen) the bronze in 3:30.89.

Manjeet gave India a good start and Sini maintained the pace with a good run before handing the baton to Ashwini.

Ashwini, who won the gold in 400m hurdles, steamed ahead with rapid strides to break away from the pack and left Kazakh Margarita way behind.

It was left to Mandeep to give it a winning finish, but the tall Kazakh runner Olga came from behind to lead briefly. Seasoned Mandeep, however, had enough fuel to pull to outpace Olga in the last 50m.

The victory gave India its fifth gold in athletics, and 13th overall. The women’s relay team had given India its only gold in athletics at the 2006 Doha Games.

India’s Preeja Sreedharan and Kavita Raut won the silver and bronze in the women’s 5000 metres.

Preeja recorded her personal best timing of 15:15.89 seconds and Kavita also had a personal best timing of 15:16.54. Preeja and Kavita had won the gold and silver in the women’s 10,000m.

The men’s kabaddi team won the gold for the sixth consecutive time at the Asian Games.

India beat Iran 37-20 and maintained their winning streak in the sport since its introduction in 1990.

Earlier, Indian women’s kabaddi team won its maiden Asian Games gold medal, defeating Thailand 28-14 in the final.

The Indian men’s team won a bronze in chess.

The team comprising Krishnan Sasikiran, Surya Shekar Ganguly, G.N.Gopal and B.Adhiban defeated Iran (Ghaem Maghami Ehsan, Mahjoob Morteza, Toufighi Homayoon, Golizadeh Asghar) 3.5-0.5 in the ninth and last round to finish third.

China beat Philippines 3.5-0.5 in the last round to take the gold. The Philippines settled for the silver.

This is India’s second medal in chess after Harika Dronavalli won a bronze in the women’s individual round.

India got two bronze medals from the roller sports events.

Anup Kumar came third with 244.2 points in the men’s single free skating long programme behind Japan’s Shingo Nishiki (253.8) and Chia Chen Yeh of Chinese Taipei (248.4).

Anup and Avani Bharath Panchal clinched a third place finish with 222.0 in the pairs skating long programme.

China’s Yawen Lin and Yunqin Tang (245.4) got the gold while Chinese Taipei’s Tzu Hsia Weng and Li Hsin Chen (237.6) the silver.

Woman wrestler Suman Kundu lost 0-3 to Mongolia’s Nasanburm Ochirbat in the semifinals of the 63 kg freestyle category.

Suman, who defeated Thi Quyen Luong (3-1) of Vietnam and Nestan Kiiazova (3-1) of Kazakhstan in the earlier rounds, will now fight for the bronze.

In the 55 kg category, Geeta defeated Jieun Um of South Korea 3-1, but lost to North Korean Yon Hui Pak (1-3) in the quarterfinals.

Another Indian, Gursharan Kaur, crashed out in the opening round, going down to Guzel Manyurova of Kazakhstan 0-5 in the 72 kg category.