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Guangzhou: It was a
delightful Sunday for India at the Asian Games with shooter Ronjan
Singh Sodhi and long distance runners Preeja Sreedharan and Sudha
Singh winning gold medals, while a silver and five bronzes during
the day took the country's tally to 33.
The three gold medals lifted India to the eight position from 14th
in the medals table.
Ronjan, a double world record holder, ended India's gold medal
drought from shooting by winning the double trap event and also
helped the Indian team bag the bronze medal at the Aoti Shooting
Range. Sodhi's gold was India's third after cueist Pankaj Advani
and rower Bajranj Lal Thakar.
Sodhi shot 47 in the final for a total of 186. Juma Dalmook Al
Maktoum of UAE won the silver with a total of 182 points (138+44)
and the bronze went to Hamad Ali Al Marri (136+45) of Qatar in a
shoot-off after three shooters were tied for a third place.
The Indian trio of Sodhi (139), junior World Champion Asher Noria
(134) and Vikran Bhatnagar (130) shot a total of 403 to win the
team bronze.
The team gold went to Chinese trio of Pan Qiang (143), Mo Junjie
(136) and Hu Binyuan (135) with a total score of 414. IOC Kuwait
settled for the silver medal with the trio of Fehaid Aldeehani
(137), Hamad Alafasi (136) and Meshfi Almutairi (134) shooting a
total of 407.
The fourth gold for India came in style with Preeja and her
compatriot Kavita Raut making a 1-2 finish in the women's 10,000
metres at the Aoti Main Stadium. Preeja clocked a personal best
timing of 31:50.47 seconds to win the first athletics gold medal
for India on the opening day of the track and field events.
Kavita also registered her personal best timing of 31:51.44 secs
while Shitay Habtegebrel of Bahrain finished third in 31:53.27
secs.
Sudha ended the day on a high note by winning the 30000 metres
steeple chase race in a neck-and-neck finish with her personal
best timing of 9:55.67 secs. The silver went to China's Jin Yuan,
who clocked 9:55.71 secs while Japan's Minori Hayakari settled for
the bronze with 10:01.25 secs.
In tennis, Sania Mirza, who had won silver in the women's singles
in Doha, had to settle for the bronze medal after she lost to
third-seeded Uzbek Akgul Amanmuradova 6-7(7), 3-6, 4-6 in a
marathon two hours and 49 minutes.
Somdev Devvarman, however, remained on course for a gold with a
6-4, 6-4 victory over China's Ze Zhang in the quarterfinal. The
win has assured the Indian, of at least a bronze. Somdev, the 2010
Commonwealth Games gold medallist, next plays Japan's Tatsuma Ito.
Somdev, later partnering Sanam Singh, entered the men' doubles
final defeating South Korea's Jae Cho-Soong and Hyun Joon Kim 6-3,
7-5. The sixth-seeded Indians next play second-seeded Chinese
Maoxin Gong and Zhe Li for the gold.
However, it was end of road for seventh-seeded Karan Rastogi who
lost 2-6, 6-4, 5-7 to top seed Dennis Istomin of Uzbekistan in the
quarterfinal.
The Indian women's archery recurve team -- Dola Banerjee, Deepaki
Kumari and Rimil Buriuly -- won the bronze, beating Chinese Taipei
218-217 in a close contest.
In fact, the Indian team missed a golden opportunity to upset
World No.1 South Korea in the semifinals as they went down in the
tie breaker 29-26, having tied at 221 after four rounds of tense
competition. The nerves got the better of the Indian trio, who
were leading by two points after the third round, in the final
round as they shot a 54 against the 56 by the fancied Koreans.
There was also some good news for India on the first day of the
wrestling competition as Ravinder Singh and Sunil Kumar Rana won a
bronze each.
Ravinder, the gold medallist at the Delhi Commonwealth Games,
defeated Muhammad Aliansyah of Indonesia 9-3 to win the bronze in
the men's Greco-Roman 60kg at the Huagong Gymasium.
Sunilkumar thrashed Sutep Oomchompoo of Thailand 5-0 in the men's
66kg Greco-Roman and won India its second bronze.
Earlier, Ravinder lost 0-3 to South Korean Jihyuh Jung while Sunil
Kumar was blanked 0-3 by Iranian Saeid Abdvali in the semifinals.
Sunil had beaten Yazgeldy Kadyrov of Turkmenistan 3-0 in the
quarterfinals while Ravinder got the better of Nurbak Tengizabayev
of Kazakhstan 3-1 to reach the last four.
Rajendra Kumar, another gold medallist in Delhi, missed out here
after losing 1-3 to Shuijin Li of China in the pre-quarterfinals.
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Seven
killed as bomb explodes in Bihar village
At least seven people were killed Sunday morning when a cylinder
bomb exploded at Pachokhar village in Bihar's Aurangabad district,
police said. The bomb was recovered during the final phase of the
Bihar assembly
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Over
2,500 kids went missing in Karachi last year
More than 2,500 children were reported as missing in Karachi last
year, an NGO has revealed.
Roshni Helpline, an NGO that deals with childrens' rights, said
that as many as 2,582 children went missing in Karachi and these
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Rashid
Khan takes India to team silver in Asiad golf
Rashid Khan endured some tense moments
right at the end of the Asian Games golf tournament at the
picturesque Dragon Lake Golf Club. But the 19-year-old held his
nerve and carried the Indian men's
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A tale of
another Fidel Castro!
When a 49-year-old native of Cuba took an oath in an American
court and promised to fulfill the duties as a US citizen, the
people present in the court had a hearty laugh - all because the
person's name was Fidel Castro Sotolongo.
Fidel Castro Sotolongo was
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Mecca
blast accused sent to judicial custody
A Hyderabad
court Saturday sent a key accused in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast
to judicial custody till Nov 30.
The Central Bureau of Investigation, which arrested Jatin
Chatterjee, also known as Swami Asimanand at
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Boycotted
Dalit woman commits suicide in Orissa
A Dalit
woman leader, who fought on behalf of two Dalit cooks who were
sacked due to upper-caste protests, hanged herself late Friday, an
organisation working for Dalit rights said Saturday.
Saraswati Sethy, 28, was a resident
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