China: The Indian rowing contingent’s campaign at the 2023 Asian Games concluded on Monday, 25 September, with five medals – three bronze and two silver. With this, the class of 2023 has also matched India’s best-ever tally of medals in rowing in any Asian Games campaign.
The first medal arrived in men’s lightweight double sculls, where the pair of Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh – two Indian Army officials hailing from Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh respectively – secured a silver medal with their timing of 6:21.18, finishing only behind China.
The second medal arrived in men’s coxless pair, which included the 22-year-old Babu Lal Yadav and the 26-year-old Lekh Ram. They clocked a timing of 6:50.41, finishing third on the podium.
The third and final rowing medal of Day 1 was a silver medal in men’s coxed eight. The team comprised Naresh Kulwaniya, Neetish Kumar, Charanjeet Singh, Jaswinder Singh, Bheem Singh, Punit Kumar, Ashish and Dhananjay Pande, who registered a time of 5:43.01, missing out on gold by merely 2.84s.
Two more medals were added to the rowing tally on Day 2, 25 September. In men’s coxless four, the quartet of Jaswinder Singh, Bheem Singh, Punit Kumar and Ashish secured the bronze medal with a time of 6:10.81, finishing only 0.77s behind silver medallists China.
The medal haul was completed by the men’s quadruple sculls team of Satnam Singh, Parminder Singh, Jakar Khan and Sukhmeet Singh. Clocking 6:08.61, they finished third.
This happens to be India’s joint-best medal haul in rowing at any Asian Games instalment, matching the tally of five medals of 2010 Guangzhou.
India’s first rowing medal in the Asian Games came way back in 1982, on home soil, where Pravin Uberoi, Mohammed Amin Naik and Deependra Tomar secured a bronze medal in men’s coxed pair.
Comments are closed.