BREATHLESS: Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh win double sculls silver | Men’s eight team too finishes second behind hosts China

Hangzhou, September 24

In a rollicking start, India’s rowers powered their way to three medals in the Asian Games here today.

On a pleasant morning with the conditions just perfect for rowing at the Fuyang Water Sports Centre, Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh opened the country’s account with a silver medal in the men’s lightweight doubles sculls event.

1 Arjun and Arvind won India’s first silver medal in men’s lightweight double sculls. India also has three bronze medals in the event

The Indian duo clocked 6 minutes, 28.18 seconds to finish behind China’s Junjie Fan and Man Sun, who won gold in 6:23.16. Uzbekistan’s Shakhzod Nurmatov and Sobirjon Safaroliyev bagged the bronze in 6:33.42.

I wanted to win an Asian Games medal since the time I took up rowing. Arjun Lal Jat

Arjun said they were disappointed to not achieve their personal best. “Gold was the target but we did our best today. We could not do our personal best of 6:19, which we did at our Army nodal centre in Pune,” said Arjun.

Arvind said an injury two months ago hampered his training. “We missed training for 20 to 25 days as I had lower-back pain two months back. Our aim was to win gold but because of my injury, I wasn’t able to push myself as much,” he said. “We will now work for Paris and then try to win gold at the 2026 Asian Games,” he added.

Arjun and Arvind have been training together for the last four years and it showed in their coordination. “We had been training for this (event) continuously for the past four years. We had made it to the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympics,” said Arjun.

Strength in numbers

The silver was just a precursor of the things to come as the men’s eight event saw an intense tussle between China and India before the host team pulled away to win gold in clocked 5:40.17. India finished second in 5:43.01. Indonesia, who clocked 5:45.51, were third.

The Indian team comprised Neeraj, Nareskh Kalwaniya, Neetish Kumar, Charanjeet Singh, Jaswinder Singh, Bheem Singh, Puneet Kumar and Ashish. “The race went according to plan,” said Dhananjay Uttam Pande, the coxswain in the team.

The achievement is all the more creditable given that powerhouses Uzbekistan and Japan finished fourth and fifth, respectively. “We wanted to build pressure on Uzbekistan, Indonesia and Japan and then target China for the win,” Pande said.

In the men’s pair event, Babulal Yadav and Lekh Ram won bronze in 6:50.41, behind Hong Kong (6:44.20) and Uzbekistan (6:48.11).

Rowers, shooters strike silver

Double delight Rower Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh win silver in men’s lightweight double sculls event

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Live on Sony Sports

Indians in action

Basketball (3×3)

Women’s Pool A: India vs Uzbekistan (11:20am)

Men’s Pool C: India vs Malaysia (12:10pm)

Boxing

(11:30am onwards)

Women’s preliminaries: Arundhati Chaudhary (66kg)

Men’s preliminaries: Deepak Bhoria (51kg), Nishant Dev (71kg)

Cricket

Women’s final: India vs Sri Lanka (11:30am)

Chess

(12:30pm onwards)

Women’s individual: Koneru Humpy, Harika Dronavalli

Men’s individual: Vidit Gujrathi, Arjun Erigaisi

Gymnastics

(7:30am onwards)

Women’s qualifying: Pranati Nayak

Handball

Women’s Group B: India vs Japan (11:30am)

Judo

(7:30am onwards)

Women’s 70kg: Garima Choudhary

Rowing

(7am onwards)

Men’s single scull final: Balraj Panwar; Men’s four final: Jaswinder Singh, Bheem Singh, Punit Kumar, Ashish; Men’s quadruple final: Satnam Singh, Parminder Singh, Jakar Khan, Sukhmeet Singh; Women’s eight final: Aswathi PB, Mrunamayee Nilesh, Priya Devi, Rukmani, Sonali Swain, Ritu Kaudi, Varsha KB, Tendenthoi Devi, G Geetanjali

Rugby

Women’s Pool F: India vs Singapore 8:30am

Sailing

(8:30am onwards)

Shooting

(6am onwards)

Men’s 10m air rifle: Divyansh Singh Panwar, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Rudrankksh Patil

Men’s 25m rapid fire pistol: Adarsh Singh, Anish, Vijayveer Sidhu

Swimming

(7:30am onwards)

Likhith SP, Dhinidhi Desinghu, Hashika Ramachandran and Virdhawal Khade