Daily Excelsior.........sports

Anand confident
of defending the
World Cup

HYDERABAD, Oct 8: Defending champion Viswanathan Anand today said he would have to do his best to retain the World Chess Cup-2002 being held here from tomorrow. . ........more

Sethi finishes India’s campaign in cue sports with a bronze

BUSAN, Oct 8: Pre-tournament favourite Geet Sethi ended India’s campaign in cue sports with a bronze medal in billiards singles in the .........more

Bahadur wins gold,
Shakti bronze in
shot put

BUSAN, Oct 8: Twenty years ago at the Delhi Asiad, Bahadur Singh won a gold in shot put for India and today at the main stadium, another Bahadur . ......more

Bahadur, Beenamol
win gold, Madhuri,
Biswas bag silver

BUSAN, Oct 8: India had another golden day at the 14th Asian Games here, bagging a . .........more

Padam Singh Charak Memorial Cricket
RCC wins by seven runs, enters semi-finals

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 8: Rajput Cricket Club (RCC), Sainik Colony today entered into the semi-finals of the Padam Singh Charak Memorial Cricket tournament beating Tringa Cricket Club (TCC), Miran Sahib by seven runs at BSF Ground, Sikanderpur, Bishnah.Earlier, batting first after winning the toss, RCC made 135 runs losing all the ..........more

Friends Club wins girls Epee team event in Distt Fencing

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 8: Friends Club won the girls under-19 Epee team event on the first day of the two-day Jammu District Fencing Championship at Multipurpose hall of Indoor ........more

GHSS ‘B’ wins boys Kabaddi trophy in rural sports

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 8: Government Higher Secondary School (GHSS) ‘B’ Majalta defeated Majalta Club to bag boys Kabaddi trophy in the block level rural and women...........more

Sethi finishes India’s campaign in cue sports with a bronze

BUSAN, Oct 8: Pre-tournament favourite Geet Sethi ended India’s campaign in cue sports with a bronze medal in billiards singles in the 14th Asian Games here today.

Sethi, who won the silver in the last games in Bangkok losing to compatriot Ashok Shandilya, wrapped up the third place match in about 25 minutes beating Aung San Oo of Mayanmar 2-0 in the best of three-frames match at the Dongju Stadium.

India finished with a total of three medals including a gold in snooker doubles by Yasin Merchant and Rafath Habib and a silver by Sethi and Alok Kumar in Billiards doubles.

Last time in Bangkok, India had won two gold, one silver and one bronze medal in billiards.

Sethi tossed for the match and, after Aung San Oo made 19 in his first visit, played with vision. Sethi’s forthright approach helped him to clear the frame with an unfinished break of 96.

With the whole Indian team present at the half-packed indoor hall, Sethi’s determination in not allowing the match drift into the decider was evident.

Spurred on with the first frame which saw his superb break putting and a lot of tactical play, Sethi took lesser time in winning the second frame and the match.

He came up with an unfinished break of 98 in the second frame denying his rival any chance of a comeback.

However, the former world champion was still disappointed in letting down his countrymen failing to win the semi-final yesterday.

"I really played well today. At least, I made sure a medal for our country," Sethi said trying to hide his disappointment.

Asked whether Ashok Shandiliya’s presence in the squad would have made any difference, Sethi said: "Shandilya is a gutsy player. In Bangkok, he collapsed in doubles but in

singles he took the challenge out of his skin. He is definitely a fighter."

Before the team left the Indian shores there were allegations of favouritism in the selection of the team for both billiards and snooker but Sethi rubbished these claims.

"It was an unbiased selection for this games. In this shorter format of the sport, one cannot predict anything," Sethi said.

"The gold haul by Yasin and Rafath enhanced our morale but we failed to take on from their excellent performance, which was also India’s first gold medal in this games," he said.

Summing up the format and competition in the 14th edition of the games, Sethi said "the cuesport is growing rapidly in this region. India were the leaders once but we cannot take anyone or anything lightly concerning the sport." "Compared to the Bangkok Games where the sport made its debut, there was a stiffer competition in Busan and I am sure the trend will only make India sit up and programme for a systematised training of our youngsters."

Apart from the medal winners the other members in the squad put up a disappointing performance.

Devendra Joshi, who had won a bronze with B Bhaskar in billiards doubles in Bangkok, failed to cross the first round, while Siddharth anand did not impress at all stumbling at the first hurdle in both billiards three cusion singles and carom.

Asim Merchant lost in eight ball pool singles pre-quarter finals. While Merchant, Pankaj Advani and Manan Chandra were eliminated in the pe-quarterfinals of snooker team event, Dharminder Lily crashed out of eight ball pool singles in the pre-quarters.

Lily along with Amit Khansaheb was also ousted in eight ball pool doubles. Mukesh Rehani lost in the quarter-finals in nine ball pool singles. (PTI)

Bahadur wins gold, Shakti bronze in shot put

BUSAN, Oct 8: Twenty years ago at the Delhi Asiad, Bahadur Singh won a gold in shot put for India and today at the main stadium, another Bahadur Singh with a throw of 19.03 mts regained the title for the country while national champion Shakti Singh finished with 18.27 mts to take bronze in the athletics event of the 14th Asian Games here today.

Interestingly, the Delhi Asiad winner is here now as the chief coach of the Indian athletic squad.

With this the Indian athletes have so far won two gold and a bronze in one and half days of the competition.

The burly Bahadur Singh, who hails from Jalandhar had his best and only throw in the second attempt. He started with a foul and then had four successive fouls after he cleared 19.03 in his second attempt.

This was not Bahadur Singh’s best but still it earned him the gold. This season, he had a throw of 19.93 which he recorded at Ludhiana. But today his close rival Qatar’s Saad Billal Mubarak also was off colour.

The Qatari, winner at the Asian track and field meet in Colombo, where he had recorded 19.22 mts, finished with 18.98 which he had in his first attempt and had to settle for a silver. He had two fouls in his second and fourth attempt while throwing 18.86 in the third, 18.75 in the fifth and 18.86 in the sixth.

The 40-year-old Shakti Singh, whose best has been 20.60 and who recently had a throw of 19.99 committed three fouls and was tied with Kuwait’s Gholoum Ahmed at 18.27.

The Indian was, however, awarded the bronze after considerable confusion on the basis of a second best throw compared to the Kuwaiti.

Ahmed had a best throw of 18.27 in his fifth event and it was ditto for the Indian too. In the sixth attempt, Ahmed finished with an effort of 17.84 while Shakti had a throw of 18.16 mts. Ahmed started with a foul, recorded 18.05 in the second attempt and 17.97 in the third while fouling the fourth. Shakti Singh, winner of a silver medal at Bangkok, had a first throw of 17.49 and then fouled next three attempts before coming up with his best in the fifth.

"The arena was slippery, it was difficult to control the movement after the throw, hence so many fouls,"said Bahadur Singh who adds Sagoo to his name to avoid confusion with his name sake and coach.

Bahadur said, "it is indeed a wonderful feeling, winning gold at Asiad is every Indian athlete’s dream. My dream has come true. It is a proud moment for me to have won the gold for the country."

A visibly elated Bahadur thanked his coach saying "he has been a source of inspiration to me, he had confidence in me and I am happy that I was able to justify his faith in me."

Shakti was very upset, "I should have been up in the medal hierarchy but the arena did me in, I had a good chance to win the medal but it was too slippery out there and I was fouled."

He, however, was happy that a fellow indian has won the gold."It would have been better if it had been 1-2 for India."

Coach Bahadur Singh was elated and promised more medals for the country from his athletes."We have started on a promising note and best is still to come," he added.

Earlier in the morning, hammer thrower Pramod Tewari of India finished sixth in the field of six throwers.

He finished the event with a best attempt of 64.54 which he achieved in his fifth effort. His other efforts were 62.14, 61.77, while he fouled the third, fourth and sixth attempts.

Twenty-eight-year-old Koji Murofushi of Japan retained the gold with 78.72 mts throw which he achieved in 2nd attempt. However, the Japanese could not come near his own best record of 83.47 mts which he had set up in Colombo ATF but he battered his own games record of 78.57 which he had set up in Bangkok in 1998.

Another Japanese Hiroki Doi took the silver with a throw of 69.57 (in his fifth attempt). He also could not equal his Colombo ATF record of 70.27 which had fetched him a silver there too. China’s Kuigang Ye was the bronze medal winner with 68.18 mts. (UNI)

Bahadur, Beenamol win gold, Madhuri, Biswas bag silver

BUSAN, Oct 8: India had another golden day at the 14th Asian Games here, bagging a pair of gold for the second day in succession, mainly to the valiant efforts of K M Beenamol and Bahadur Singh who raised country’s flag high in the women’s 800m and men’s shot put events respectively.

Madhuri A Singh and Soma Biswas won the silver medals in the 800 metres event and women’s heptathlon while Shakti Singh, J J Shobha and Geet Sethi won a bronze each in the men’s shot put, women’s heptathlon and men’s billiards events respectively.

With this, India had boosted its medals tally to 17 medals —six golds, five silvers and six bronzes but remained at the ninth position at the end of tenth day of the competition.

Yesterday, the Kabaddi team and long jumper Anju Bobby George had won golds while wrestler Palminder Cheema bagged a bronze medal.

Earlier, the duo of Yasin Merchant and Rafat Habib gave India their first gold in the snooker doubles event and Shiv Kapur winning the second gold in the individual golf.

The Indians athletes started from where Anju George had left yesterday, annexing four of the five medals the country had won today.

Double gold prospect Beenamol expetedly won the 800 events clocking two minutes 4.17 seconds ahead of compatriot Madhuri who won the only silver of the day for the country.

Beenamol pipped Madhuri at the post who had to be content with the silver with a time of 2:04.94s. Uzbekistan’s Zamira Amirova took the bronze in a time of 2:05.05.

But it was Bahadur Singh, who gave India their first gold of the day, with a throw of 19.03 mts regained the title for the country ahead of national champion Shakti Singh who finished with 18.27 mts to take bronze in the athletics event.

The burly thrower, who hails from Jalandhar had his best and only throw in the second attempt. He started with a foul and then had four successive fouls after he cleared 19.03 in his second attempt. This was not Bahadur’s best but still it earned him the gold. This season, he had a throw of 19.93 which he recorded at Ludhiana. But today his close rival Qatar’s Saad Billal Mubarak also was off colour.

The Qatari, winner at the Asian track and field meet in Colombo, where he had recorded 19.22 mts, finished with 18.98 which he had in his first attempt and had to settle for a silver.

The 40-year-old Shakti Singh, whose best has been 20.60 and who recently had a throw of 19.99 committed three fouls and was tied with Kuwait’s Gholoum Ahmed at 18.27. The Indian was, however, awarded the bronze after considerable confusion on the basis of a second best throw compared to the Kuwaiti.

In heptathlon, Soma Biswas aggregated 5,899 points for a silver while her compatriot J J Shobha had a tally of 5,870 points, which earned her a bronze.

Shengfei Shen of China was gold medallist in this event with a total of 5911, a good 12 points ahead of Biswas and 41 points ahead of Shobha.

In billliards, four times world champion and holder Geet Sethi took 27 minutes to beat Myanmar’s U Aung San Oo 2-0 in a one sided encounter to settle for the bronze medal in the billiards competition.

Displaying superb fluency on the green baize, the Indian, who was the pre-tournament favourite to retain the gold, pumped out all his pent up frustration on hapless Aung San thrashing him 100-19, 100-0.

So dominant and ruthless was geet in his play that san oo barely got off the chair in the play-off match.

"I finally found my form," said Geet, and added,"I only wish I had played like this in the team event. We could have won the gold earlier...I am happy that I could win the bronze. But had it been gold it would have been more satisfying."

On the overall performance of the Indian cueists, Geet said, "this time we got a gold from unexpected quarters. Yasin and Rafat deserve full credit for they really had little chance before the games. Expect the unexpected in this games, I think that tells a story." Iin shooting, the Indian campaign came to an end as they failed to qualify for the final round of the last two events of the competition — 25m standard pistol for men and skeet.

At the end of the second round in Skeet, the Indian trio of Rahoul Rai, Harinder Singh Bedi and Naveen Jindal ended way down the ladder while in the 25m standard pistol, Jaspal Rana, Ved Prakash Pilaniya and Samresh Jung were no where in the contention.

In the last two rounds of the skeet event, Rahoul Rai, who scored 66 out of 75 yesterday, shot 43 (22, 21) out of 50 today to aggregate 109 in five rounds and was placed joint 23rd in the field of 33.

Harinder Singh Bedi, who shot 64 yesterday, fired 43 (21, 22) for a total of 107 and ended at 29th place. A slot behind him was compatriot Naveen Jindal who shot 18 (18, 0).

In the 25m standard pistol, Jaspal Rana ended at 12th place with a total of 568. In his first series of four rounds, he had a score of 190 (50, 45, 47, 48), in the second series he earned a total of 189 (47, 46, 48, 48) and in the third 189 (48, 48, 48, 45).

Ved Prakash was placed 19th with a total of 561. His series scores were 192 (48, 49, 47, 48), 188 (47, 48, 48, 45) and 81 (45, 45, 44, 47).

Samresh Jung finished at the 36 spot with a total of 551. His series read 194 (49, 50, 49, 46), 189 (47, 48, 47, 47) and 168 (36, 48, 44, 40).

Thus ended the sorry campaign of the 28-member Indian shooting squad, including nine women with their reputation severely dented. They could win only two silver medals. In the recently-concluded Commonwealth Games, the shooters had won as many as 14 golds. In volleyball, India signed off with a consolation victory today spiking out Qatar in straight games.

India, who are already out of the contention for a medal, ended their league engagements with two wins and two defeats from four matches and will now play Pakistan and Chinese Taipei for the 5-8 positions.

In today’s game, India played out of their skins to demolish a fighting Qatar 25-22, 25-17, 25-14.

India, who were placed in Group A, had lost the first two matches against Korea and Iran respectively and defeated Macau in their third match.

In boxing, Commonwealth Games gold medallist Mohammad Ali Qamar bowed out of the light flyweight category outpointed in the quarter-finals.

Qamar, one of the strong medal prospects for the country after his splendid performance in Manchester, lost to Harry Tanamor of the Philippines 11-21.

The Indian pugilist failed to recover from the early assault launched by his opponent who earned a vital lead.

Though Qamar closed the gap in the last two rounds with a few punches, it was too late to bring the result in his favour.

Keeping medal hopes alive, Ramananand and Jitender Kumar will face stiff opposition in their next fights in the quarter-finals.

In sailing, India was assured of a silver medal in the Ok Dinghy event but sailor Nitin Mongia and his coach Homi Motivala were very upset alleging that rules are being twisted to help the hosts.

Mongia was in gold-medal winning position until the eighth race in which he was disqualified. "I had a contact with Jin’s boat and he was in the wrong. A jury member gave witness in my favour yet I was disqualified," Mongia alleged.

"The Koreans are blatantly cheating," claimed national coach Homi Motivala. "Rules are being twisted to ensure that the Koreans win in all classes," he said. Mongia, who had won a silver at the Asian Championships here last year, lost his focus thereafter. "These things are affecting Nitin’s performance and he seemed unable to concentrate," said Motivala.

"China, Hong Kong and Japan too have protested the bias for Korean sailors."

The Korean sailor H C Jin - (assured of the gold in the Ok Dinghy - was allowed to change his sail after the first day, said enterprise class coach Surinder Mongia.

In tennis, the duo of Vishal Uppal and Mustafa Ghouse posted a creditable 6-1, 6-4 win over Cheng Wei Jen and Chen Ti of Chinese Taipei in the second round to move up to the quarter-finals of the men’s doubles tennis competition.

However, the country’s expectations in the singles events suffered a chain of jolts with three of the four players in contention bowing out — all of them to Japanese opponents.

Sunil Kumar Sipaeya crashed out to Goichi Motomura 2-6, 6-7 (1/7) in the third round in men’s section while Sania Mirza went down 4-6, 2-6 to Saori Obata in the women’s section.

Senior women’s player Nirupama Vaidyanathan lost in straight sets 1-6, 0-6 to Shinobu Asagoe.

Indian duo of Ankita Bhambri and Rushmi Chakravarti also bowed out of the competition with 0-6, 3-6 defeat against Hsieh Su Wei and Chan Chin Wei of Chinese Taipei in the second round of the women’s doubles section.

Keeping medal hopes alive, Leander Paes and Sania Mirza beat Japan’s Thomas Shimada and Shinobu Asagoe 6-3, 6-3 in the second round of the mixed doubles.

The Paes-Mirza pair will take on Thailand’s Tamarine Tanasugarn and Vittaya Samrei in the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles tomorrow. (UNI)