After a long day yesterday, finally hitting the bed at 2 in the morning, it was an early morning call time at the rowing. With 5 medals at stake for Team India at the Fuyang Water Sports Stadium, there was no question of being late.
It was a cold morning with a steady drizzle all through the previous night. The phone showed 20 degrees, but it surely felt like 15-16°c with a light breeze and fog all around.
The event was scheduled at 9 am local time, so with an hour in hand, a quick recce was always helpful.
The first event was Women’s Light-weight doubles sculls Final A, with no Indian contender in the list. But an important warmup drill for a Indian journalist, with the many finals to come in the next few hours.
In the second event of the day, with just a 10 minute gap after the first, it was Kiran and Anshika Bharti, representing India in the Women’s Lightweight Doubles Scull Final. The young Indian pair finished third with a 7:40:84, but sadly it wasn’t a medal event.
India’s moment came in the 9:40 am slot in the Men’s Lightweight Doubles Scull Final A, where Arvind Singh and Lal Jatt Arjun bagged the silver with a 6:28:18 finish, 5 seconds after China. It was a close contest.
The last two slots for the day, 11:00 and 11:30 am, saw the tri colour go up on both occasions, with a bronze followed by a silver medal.
Babu Lal Yadav and Ram Lekh, bagged their first international medal, with an attempt of 6:50:41, finishing third to Hong Kong and Uzbekistan. “We’re really happy to have won our first international medal and we’ll try even harder in the upcoming tournaments to bring more medals for the country”, said the pair.
The writer’s personal favourite race was the last race, where the Men’s Eight team was locked in a close battle with China and had to eventually settle for a silver, making it the third in rowing and the fourth for India on the day. We added a shooting bronze with Ramita Jindal soon after.
The team fell short by 3 seconds finishing with 5:43:01 but the effort was commendable with very little gap between the top 5 in the tally.
“I’m very happy with the team’s performance. Our main focus was to get past Japan and Uzbekistan and the boys did well. We expect two to three more medals tomorrow as well”, said the head coach to the media.
India’s medal matches in rowing on 25th September:
9:30 am (6:00 am IST): Men’s Singles Scull Final A (Balraj Panwar)
10:10 am (7:40 am IST): Men’s Four Final A
11:00 am (8:30 am IST): Men’s Quadruple Final A
11:20 am (8:50 am IST): Women’s Eight Final A