SOMDEV TAKES CENTRESTAGE, BHARAT MAINTAINS 8TH SPOT ON TABLE
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
PTI
The Pioneer
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Guangzhou - Tennis star Somdev Devvarman took centre stage by
fetching a gold medal in doubles event and also becoming the first
Indian to reach the final in men's singles as India clinched three
medals to maintain their 8th position on the tenth day of
competitions in the 16th Asian Games here today.
Somdev teamed up with Sanam Singh to claim the title in the men's
doubles event and inched closer to a historic singles gold by moving
into the final on what turned out to be a fruitful day for him.
Sania Mirza and Vishnu Vardhan had to be content with a silver in
mixed doubles while the men's archery team comprising Rahul Banerjee,
Mangal Singh Champia and Jayanta Talukdar bagged a bronze in the team
event.
With the addition of three more medals, India's medal tally climbed
to six gold, 12 silver and 18 bronze to maintain their 8th position
on a day which saw the athletes drawing blank.
Hosts China continued to reign supreme and consolidated their
posision atop the medal table with a stupendous haul of 154-77-73
while South Korea (61-51-66) and Japan (32-59-67) were in the second
and third.
Five-time world champion M C Mary Kom (51kg) and Kavita Goyat (75kg)
assured India of at least two bronze medals in women's boxing by
advancing to the semifinals with contrasting wins. Santosh Kumar also
advanced to the semi-finals in the men's section.
After launching their campaign in spectacular fashion by fetching two
gold medals, the athletes returned empty-handed today while the
grapplers, who acconted for two bronze medals yesterday, came a
cropper in Greco Roman competitions.
The women's hockey team went down to China 1-2 in their last league
match but were still in contention for a bronze medal.
The day clearly belonged to Somdev as he pipped Japan's Tatasuma Ito
6-2 0-6 6-3 in the semifinals to set up the summit-clash with top
seed Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan.
Later, he and Sanam Singh combined superbly to win first gold medal
for India in the tennis event in this edition of the Games as the
sixth seed pair shocked second seed Chinese Gong Maoxin and Li Zhe 6-
3 6-7(4) 10-8 in the final.
However, gold eluded Sania yet again as she and Vishnu Vardhan,
seeded sixth, lost the mixed doubles final 6-4 1-6 2-10 to second
seed Taipei pair of Chan Yung Jan and Yang Tsung Hua.
Somdev and Sanam's gold medal feat assumes significance as India
landed here without star doubles pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh
Bhupathi, gold medallists of the last edition at Doha in 2006, who
opted to play in World Tour Finals in London. Rohan Bopanna is also
missing from the Indian line-up though he had failed to qualify for
the World Tour Finals.
Before Somdev, no Indian had managed to enter men's singles final and
India had won only three bronze medals in men's singles in Asian
Games. Leander Paes had won it in 1994 in Hiroshima Games and Mahesh
Bhupathi and Prahlad Srinath had won it during 1998 Games in Bangkok.
In the showpiece athletics event, medal prospects Mandeep Kaur and
Manjeet Kaur finished disappointing fourth and fifth with below-par
performances in women's 400m final.
One-lap racer Mandeep Kaur, the leading timer in Asia this season and
drawn on the outside lane seven, led the field till the back stretch
before flagging behind to finish fourth in 52.99 secs.
National record holder Manjeet, gold medallist in 2002 at Busan and
silver medallist four years later in Doha, finished a poor fifth in
53.27, two seconds below her personal best.
In women's hammer throw, national record holder Hardeep Kaur started
with a foul attempt before attaining her best effort of the day,
60.54m in her third attempt, to finish fourth.
Sprinters Mohammed Najeeb Qureshi and Krishnakumar Rane both failed
to advance to the men's 100m final after finishing fourth by both in
the semifinals.
Spearheaded by Saurav Ghosal and Joshna Chinappa, Indian men's and
women's racqueters came out with a heartening performance to end the
day on an unbeaten note in the squash team events.
Indian men blanked Japan 3-0 in their opening encounter of the day
and then went on to secure their third straight preliminary league
victory in the event, thrashing Saudi Arabia with an identical
scoreline.
In the women's section, Chinappa, Dipika Pallikal and Anaka
Alankamony ripped apart the challenge of Chinese racqueters 3-0 in
the first outing. They then secured a victory over arch-rivals
Pakistan.
India slumped to a 1-2 defeat at the hands of defending champions
China in their last round-robin match but still qualified for the
bronze medal play-off game against Japan in women's hockey
competitions.
With three wins and as many defeats, the Surinder Kaur-led side
finished its round-robin league proceedings at fourth position with
nine points and will get a chance to defend its bronze medal, which
they earned four years ago in Doha.
The Indian trio of Jayanta Talukdar, Rahul Banerjee and Mangal Singh
Champia fought through challenging conditions to clinch the men's
team bronze after beating Chinese Taipei in the Archery competition.
Like the women, the Indian men defeated Chinese Taipei but with a
more comprehensive 220-216 margin as compared to the women's 218-217
victory in the bronze medal play-off.
Incidentally, both men and women lost to world's top archers from
South Korea in the semifinals before clinching the bronze medal.
The Indians scored 28 and 29 for a total of 57 in the first set of
six arrows, 56 (29 and 27) in the second set and flagged a bit to get
53 (26 and 27) in the third and 54 in the fourth and last set (27 and
27). They shot a total of eight 10s and bulls eyes.
In chess, Indian women drubbed Mongolia to climb to the joint top
position while their male counterparts slipped to the fourth spot
with a shocking defeat at the hands of lower-rated Philippines after
the fifth round.
In rugby, despite suffering heavy defeats in all three league
matches, the Indian men's team qualified for the quarter finals as
only nine teams are in the fray.
India, who were thrashed 43-5 by Korea in the opening pool B match
yesterday, were today drubbed 61-0 by China and 42-12 by sub-
continental rivals Sri Lanka to finish at the bottom of the group.
Yet, they qualified for the quarter finals and will play the winners
of pool B at the University Town stadium tomorrow.
The women performed no better, and were steamrolled by Japan 31-0 for
their second straight preliminary league defeat after being thumped
50-0 by Kazakhstan.
Indian cyclists continued to cut a sorry figure at the Games with the
duo of Sombir and Atul Yadav finishing 27th and 32nd respectively in
the men's Individual Road Race here today.
In the 180km race, comprising nine laps of 20km each, Sombir clocked
4:15:15.42 and managed an average speed of 42.310. Atul was further
down after clocking 4:15:59.39 at an average speed of 42.189.
India swamped Bangladesh 34-20 in their opening encounter as women's
kabaddi made its Asian Games debut today.
Indian women spikers suffered their third successive defeat in the
Asian Games, going down 0-3 to Chinese Taipei in their last
preliminary Group B match at the Guangwai Gymnasium here today.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/298313/Somdev-takes-centrestage-India-maintains-8th-spot-on-table.html
More at:
http://www.dailypioneer.com
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.
Since newsgroup posts are being removed
by forgery by one or more net terrorists,
this post may be reposted several times.
Fan
Jai Maharaj) wrote:
> Somdev takes centrestage, India maintains 8th spot on table
>
that my day would have been incomplete without it.
Just one question; who the hell is Somdev?
Iceberg
> On Nov 23, 7:55 am, use...@mantra.com and/orwww.mantra.com/jai(Dr.Jai Maharaj) wrote:
> > Somdev takes centrestage, India maintains 8th spot on table
>
> Thank you, thank you, and thank you for this wonderful news. I feel
> that my day would have been incomplete without it.
> Just one question; who the hell is Somdev?
Raja's friend/hero?