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Sarita loses fight she had won
Sarita had little money; no official support
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Men, women in kabaddi semifinals
Scorchers deny Lions, CSK in semis
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Sarita loses fight she had won
When the cameras had gone, when Sarita Devi was left alone with her anger and her misery, she began weeping and howling and screaming. “This is wrong! This is not sport, this is cheating!” she wailed. “Nobody cares for me! They’ve left me alone!” Sarita Devi was left in the cold due to South Korea’s greed for gold. She was forsaken by the referees, judges, jury. Boxing was disgraced – were the men and women who run the sport to see Sarita’s heart break, they surely would have hung their heads in shame. It became clear from today’s second bout that something rotten was taking place in the boxing stadium of the Seonhak sports park. Sarita Devi bashed South Korea’s Park Jina in the semifinals of the women’s 60kg boxing semifinal. The first round seemed inconclusive, though the judges gave the round to the home girl. The second round was clearly Sarita’s; the third round was very decisively hers — at one point, she landed six consecutive blows on the face and head of the South Korean, who rocked back but managed to keep on her feet. Sarita fought with much greater aggression in the last two rounds — her straight punches were accurate and stinging, and Park Jina saved herself by clinching and holding Sarita. The effect on the fans, the local volunteers, the supporting officials was very evident – they had been cheering their girl in the first two rounds, but the pummelling she got made them silent. They knew that Sarita Devi had won the bout. The judges thought, or perhaps were made to think, very differently. The name of the winner was announced – it was the woman in the red, Park Jina. The Executive Director of the international boxing association (AIBA) is Ho Kim, a South Korean. Sarita Devi knew what had happened – the hosts wanted the highest number of medals in their own Games. The bout was fixed to make Park Jina the winner. Sarita smiled and clapped in sarcasm. Park Jina exited the ring, but Sarita stayed put for some time. The crowd began to whistle, loud boos and cat-calls were heard against the verdict. The Indian coaches were aghast. India coach BI Fernandes was spluttering, almost incomprehensible with rage. “Jina should have been given a standing count at least three times in the bout,” he said. “Her head was jerked back so many times by Jina’s blows, but the referee in the ring was clearly working against her.” “You Koreans have stolen this medal,” Sarita’s husband Thoiba Singh yelled, even as he got into a heated argument with officials. “It was a one-sided bout, and this was dishonesty,” Fernandes said. “They (judges and referees) were bribed. This was extremely dishonest. The Korean coach (Park Hi-sun) came to us and said sorry to me after the bout. He knew that this was a very wrong decision.” The Indians lodged a protest, with a fee of $500, but it was clear that the decision wasn’t going to be reversed. More anger Not long after this, Mongolian boxer Tugstsogt Nyambayar suffered at the hands of the judges. The Mongolian is an Olympic silver medallist, and he was clearly the superior boxer in the men’s 56kg category. He beat Korean Sangmyeong Ham — that much was clear to everyone. But the Korean was declared the winner. Nyambayar didn’t want to leave without a protest. He stayed put in the ring for some five minutes, even as the crowd shouted “Mongolia, Mongolia” and booed the referees, and some people threw down empty water bottles, and a bottle fell into the ring. The Mongolian coaches were angry, and they immediately wanted to go in and lodge a protest. They confronted Ho Kim, who advised them to lodge a protest. And they did it again!
But in the later parts of the fight, it was clear that Devendro had won. But he had lost, of course — right when it became clear that he’d fight a Korean in this bout. Six Korean men or women fought today, and only one of them lost. Perhaps only two of these five bouts were won in a fair manner. The Indian won the fight fair and square— that’s what everyone but the jury believes Well, perhaps the Indian watchers, the coaches and the fans and the journalists, were biased about the Sarita Devi-Park Jina fight, right? Yes, that’s possible. So we tried to get the opinion of some unbiased people. Mary Kom beat Vietnam’s Ler Thi Bang to enter the final of the 51kg class. So who did Bang think won the Sarita-Jina bout? “India won,” exclaimed Bang, throwing punches rapidly and powerfully in the air, to show that Sarita had pummelled Jina. “It was a wrong decision,” she added, through a translator. Omar Puentes Malagon, the Cuban coach of the Thailand team, said the same. “India won that bout, everyone knows that,” he said. Ihab Mahmoud Darweesh Almatbouli of Jordan, who was to fight the 91kg bout later, said it was clear that Sarita had won. “We all know who was the winner, and it was not the Korean girl,” he said. Kim Haryun, a British-Korean journalist who works for a Japanese broadcaster, was saddened by the injustice of it all. “Oh, should I speak as a Korean or an observer… Well, I’ll speak as an observer,” she said. “It was very wrong. The least the organisers must do is to be fair to these athletes, who work hard for years, and then this happens. I know what it feels like to be away from one’s child – I feel very sorry for her, please do tell her that.” A Mongolian team official said: “Everyone knows that the judges are handpicked by a certain Korean official, and they’re instructed to help the home boxers win. You go and ask anyone you want to, show them a recording of the Sarita-Jina fight, and no one will ever believe that Jina won.” — Rohit Mahajan Sarita speaks
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Sarita had little money; no official support
Incheon, September 30 But Sarita Devi, her husband Thoiba Singh and coach Lenin Meitei wanted to file a protest. Thoiba Singh needed $500 for the fee to file the protest, but they didn’t have that sum on them. They managed to raise this sum with help from friends. Thoiba Singh wrote down the complaint on a piece of paper. The protest was not lodged within the time limit of 30 minutes after the bout. “We could not do that because we had so many bouts to go to, to attend to so many boxers, in that time,” said one of the coaches later. Coach Sagar Dhaiya took the handwritten protest, to lodge it with the officials, along with $500. But Dhaiya soon came back, carrying a blank form that needed to be filled for a protest to be lodged. “We were first told by the coaches that there was no provision to lodge a protest,” Thoiba said later. “But we wanted to protest, we didn’t want to come back quietly.” The protest was rejected, but Sarita clung to a little string of hope until the late evening, and did not leave the boxing venue. Sarita, Thoiba and Meitei pondered over their next course of action — they thought of not accepting the bronze medal Sarita would be awarded tomorrow. “It’s not about a piece of metal,” Thoiba said. “She won the bout, and we want justice, we don’t want a bit of metal.” They were bitter that no Indian Olympic Association (IOA) official came to support them. India’s deputy Chef-de-Mission Kuldeep Vats, was at the boxing venue well before the day’s first bout, occupying one of the comfortable sofas reserved for the officials. Then Vats simply disappeared, even as a melee ensued in the area where boxers meet the media. “No one came to support me,” wailed Sarita. Mongolian protest
The Mongolian officials supported their boxer, Tugstsogt Nyambayar, who too suffered injustice at the hands of the referees. “This is blatant favouritism,” said Mongolia Chef-de-Mission, Badmaanyambuugiin Bat-Erdene, a former wrestler. He rushed to meet the organising officials, including Ho Kim, the AIBA Executive Director. “We can even pull out our boxing team from this event, this is cheating,” he said. The Mongolians were better organised — they acted immediately, and they printed their protest on the letterhead of their National Olympic Association, while India’s protest had been handwritten. “In Ulan Bator, there is a lot of anger due to this favouritism and wrong decision,” said Otgontsagaan Jugder of the Mongolian National Olympic Committee. “The Korean embassy has advised all Koreans to stay home. Our people are very angry, because we’ve been robbed of a gold medal.” In the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Park Si-Hun had won the gold medal in the light middleweight (71kg) category. Not a single observer believed that Park had won, for he had received a terrific pummelling at the hands of Roy Jones Jr. of the US. The verdict of three of the fives judges was that Park was the winner, while two judges had Jones as the winner. It later emerged that Jones had landed 86 punches against Park's 32. After that, one judge admitted that the decision was wrong, and two of the three judges who voted for Park were later banned for life. An International Olympic Committee investigation concluded that three of the five judges had been brought around with inducements. Interestingly, Jones was awarded the Val Barker trophy in 1988. This trophy is given to the boxer with the best style in every Olympic Games. |
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India break final jinx, set up title clash with arch-rival Pakistan
Incheon, September 30 India won, but it wasn’t a convincing win, and certainly not a pleasing one. The first two quarters were barren, India missing at least three clear chances. Then, in the 44th minute, Akashdeep Singh got the ball inside the circle and scored the winner in spectacular fashion. Without turning, he flicked the ball through the legs of goalkeeper Myungho Lee, who just didn’t anticipate this attack. India were 1-0 up. In the final quarter, the South Koreans threw everything at the Indians, who seemed clearly under pressure but managed to keep the ball out of their goal. India, thus, reached the final for the first time since 2002, when they ended up with the silver medal. Sardar Singh was the pivot in the Indian team, again. But the semifinal didn’t reach very high quality —the Indians were just about good enough, and the South Koreans lacked imagination and creativity. They held through the first two quarters due to the their stubbornness, and the inability of the Indian attack to finish effectively. The Indian defence had weak links, and Pakistan had showed how to crack it – they’d put pressure on it, harrying the defenders, making them run hard, running them ragged. The South Africans preferred to play defensively, perhaps hoping that they’d be able to break away on the counter to score. India’s defence managed to withstand the pressure the South Koreans exerted – India had seven shots on goal, the hosts had just one in the whole match. However, the forwards have much work to do, for they’ve failed to work closely with the midfield; they seem to be expecting to receive the ball rather than working to snatch it or bring it up from the midfield. The Indian coach, Terry Walsh, later said that he can’t complain because the team has reached the final; he also said that he was not satisfied with the level of the play the team has shown. “An important part of the preparation is the recovery we’ve got to make,” he said. “I don’t think that we have to work terribly hard on the mental side… I think that we just need to keep the players in sight of what they need to do.” He said after the defeat to Pakistan, they’ve worked hard and have trained specifically on certain aspects of their game; they’ve had long video and analysis sessions. “It’s not about how well you play in a one game or two games,” he said. Pak beat Malaysia
In the second semifinal, played under a dark and angry sky, defending champions Pakistan beat Malaysia 6-5 on penalty strokes, after the match had ended goalless at fulltime, and goalkeeper Imran Butt became Pakistan’s hero with his save. |
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Men, women in kabaddi semifinals
Incheon, September 30 The Rakesh Kumar-led men's team, which defeated Bangladesh and Thailand earlier, put in another dominating performance to trounce Pakistan. Indian men have won all the six gold medals ever since the spot was introduced in the Asian Games in 1990 in Beijing. The men's team with the starting line-up of Jasvir Singh, Anup Kumar, Manjeet Chhillar, Navneet Singh, Gurpreet Singh and Subramaniam Rajguru, rode on its brilliant first half when it zoomed to a 17-4 lead. The Indian team knocked out 11 Pakistan athletes and collected two ‘lona’ points. After taking a big lead in the first 20 minutes, defending champions, India played it easy in the second half and got six points as compared to Pakistan's seven. But in the end, the 13 points first half deficit proved costly for the Pakistan, who also qualified for the semi-final as the second team from Group A. The semifinals are slated for Thursday. Earlier, the women's team, which thrashed Bangladesh Sunday, put in another dominating performance to trounce the hosts at the Songdo Global University Gymnasium. The women's team with the starting line-up of Kavitha Selvaraj, Kavita Devi, V. Tejeswini Bai, Abhilasha Mhatre, Priyanka, Mamatha Poojari and Kishori Shinde, rode on its brilliant first half when it zoomed to 27-10 lead. The Indian team knocked out 22 Korean athletes and collected four 'lona' points. Defending champions, India rested some seniors in the second half that allowed the Koreans to score some points. The Koreans bagged 16 points as compared to India's 18 in the second half. But the hosts failed to erase the 17 points deficit of the first half and were knocked out of the competition. — PTI
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Gowda gets a silver
Incheon, September 30 Gowda, who recently won the gold in Glasgow Commonwealth Games, came up with a below-par best effort of 62.58m which he did in his second attempt to fetch the silver at the Incheon Asiad Main Stadium here. The Indian has a season's best of 65.62m while his personal best — also the national record — is 66.28m. Hadadi, who was struggling for form this season despite being a pre-Games favourite, outperformed Gowda with a best throw of 65.11m to clinch the gold and run away with a hat-trick of titles. He has also won gold in 2006 and 2010 Asian Games. Gowda had finished third in 2006 Doha Games. The Iranian Asian record holder with 69.32m, one of the top discus throwers in the world, threw the disc better than Gowda's 62.58m four times today as he also had 64.89, 63.77 and 64.47 in his fourth to sixth attempts. Gowda, who had won gold in Glasgow with 63.64m, had three foul throws in his last three attempts as he failed to mount any challenge to his Iranian rival and had to settle for the silver which is the ninth medal from Indian track and field athletes in four days. It was a case of Gowda hitting Hadadi hurdle once again as he has done better than the Iranian only once in 17 clashes he had in his career, including today's final. The lone instance when Gowda did better than Hadadi was in the Doha leg of the prestigious IAAF Diamond League Meeting in May when the Indian was second while the Iranian was seventh. Siddhanth finishes sixth
In the only other final involving an Indian, national record holder Siddhanth Thingalaya finished sixth in men's 110m hurdles in 13.73secs. The Indian could not touch his season's best of 13.65secs, which he did in August at Patiala. China’s Wenjun Xie (13.36 secs) clinched the gold while South Korean Byoungjun Kim (13.43 secs) and Thai Jamras Rittidet (13.61 secs) took the silver and bronze respectively. Tintu, Sushma qualify for 800m final
Half milers medal prospect Tintu Luka and Sushma Devi qualified for the 800m finals. Luka, the Asian leader with 2:00.56, won heat No.1 in 2:04.28. — Agencies |
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Women sailing duo get historic bronze
India bagged their first-ever medal in the Asian Games women's sailing competition as Varsha Gautam and crew Aishwarya Nedunchezhiyan won a bronze in the 29er women's two person dinghy event here on Tuesday. 16-year-old Varsha and 18-year-old Aishwarya won the 11th and penultimate race and then finished second in the final race to log 25.0 net penalty points, four behind silver medal winners Rui Xi Priscilla Low and Rui Qi Cecilia Low of Singapore at the Wangsan Sailing Marina here. All-win day for Indian paddlers
Paddlers Achanta Sharath Kamal and Anthony Amalraj reached the men's doubles third round. Amalraj and Kamal unexpectedly lost the first game before taming the Nepal's Purshottam Bajracharya and Amar Lal Malla 6-11, 11-5, 11-8, 12-10. Also booking a third round berth in the men's doubles was the pair of Harmeet Desai and Soumyajit Ghosh as they took just 15 minutes to disptach Yemen's Omar Ahmed Ali and Mohammed Fahd Gubran 12-10, 11-5, 11-6. In the mixed doubles pre-quarterfinals, the combine of Amalraj and Madhurika Patkar rallied to beat Japan's Seiya Kishikawa and Ai Fukuhara 5-11, 13-11, 11-8, 11-4 in 26 minutes to reach the quarter-finals. Women spikers lose to Kazakhstan
Indian women spikers continued to disappoint as they lost their 5th-8th place semifinal play-off against Kazakhstan by three straight sets. The Kazakh women won the contest 25-20 25-19 25-20 in only 69 minutes as India will now play in the 7th-8th place play-off final. India will play the loser of the encounter between Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei in the 7th-8th place. Latika, Jasvant lose in quarters
Latika Bhandari and Jasvant lost their taekwondo quarterfinal bouts. Latika went down 1-13 to South Korean Jeongyeon Yoon in the quarterfinal of women's 53kg. Jeongyeon won the first round 3-0 and opened up a 4-0 lead after the second. She came down heavily on Latika in the third and the final round winning it 9-1. In the men's 74kg quarterfinal, Jasvant went down tamely 0-8 to Iranian Masoud Hajizavareh. The first round ended with both the fighters getting any points but in the second round Hajizavareh showed some fine skills to get five points and bagged three more in the final round. Iraqi weightlifter caught doping
An Iraqi weightlifter has failed a dope test for the second time in six years and was kicked out. Mohammed al Aifuri, who came seventh in the men's super-heavyweight +105kg category, was the second test failure announced Tuesday and the fourth since the start. Earlier today, a wushu gold medallist from Malaysia was announced as having tested positive for a
stimulant. |
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Scorchers deny Lions, CSK in semis
Bangalore, September 30 The Lions, on six points going into the match, needed a big win to not only tie with Chennai Super Kings, but also pip them on Net Run Rate (NRR), but it proved to be a mission impossible. Thus, in the semifinals on Thursday in Hyderabad, the Kolkata Knight Riders take on Hobart Hurricanes and Chennai Super Kings face Kings XI Punjab. The final will be played here Saturday. Lahore Lions, who made 124 for six batting first, needed to contain the Scorchers to 78 or less and get ahead of Super Kings on NRR. The Pakistani outfit came within a whisker of achieving it, but their hopes were dashed in the 14th over bowled by off-spinner Adnan Rasool who conceded 16 runs as the Scorchers' total crossed 78. Scorchers were at one stage 40 for six, their batsmen all at sea against the Lions spinners, but a calm skipper Mitchell Marsh (63 not out, 7x4, 2x6), who had taken 2 for 12, denied the Pakistanis as he put on a match-winning partnership of 68 runs with veteran Brad Hogg (28 not out) for the eighth wicket to take his team to victory. The Lions did extremely well defending a modest total by having the Scorchers on the mat at 40 for six wickets, five of them claimed by the spinners. But Marsh and Hogg turned the match around for the Aussie team with sensible batting, something that was missing in the Lions ranks. The Lions have to thank Saad Nasim (69 not out, 55b, 7x4, 1x6) and his two partnerships with Umar Akmal (26) and Mohammed Saeed (20) for saving their blushes and reaching 124 for six. The Lions lost the plot in the first few overs after being put in to bat as they lost four quick wickets to some thoughtless strokes and were four for 11 in the fourth over. Thereafter, it was left to Nasim and Akmal to repair the damage with a 43-run partnership before the latter departed, falling to the crafty Hogg. Nasim found a willing partner in Mohammed Saeed (20) as the pair put on 48 runs for the sixth wicket, but it proved all too little too late. A 14-run final over helped the Lions to inflate their total to 124, leaving themselves a near-impossible task of restricting the Scorchers to under 78 for a ticket to the semi-finals. Brief scores: Lahore Lions 124 for 6 (Saad Nasim 69 not out, Joel Paris 3 for 22, Mitchell Marsh 2 for 12); Perth Scorchers 130 for 7 in 19 overs (Mitchell Marsh 63 not out, Brad Hogg 28 not out, Mohammad Hafeez 2 for 8, Mustafa Iqbal 2 for 20) by 3 wickets. — IANS
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After Sarita was robbed of either a gold or silver, it seemed possible that the cheating wouldn’t be so blatant. The Indian boxers and coaches, however, were under no illusion. “Devendro Singh would have to knock Shin Jonghun out in the quarterfinals, otherwise he’s likely to lose,” an Indian boxer commented. Devendro beat up Shin Jonghun. Shin came in with an injury in his right eye, and his clear effort in the three rounds was to protect himself. He did that, but he also landed some good blows on the Indian boxer.
