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Indian men sight golf medals

H S Bedi and C N R Vijaykumar in Bangkok

India's gold hunt in the tennis team event ended and ace shooter Jaspal Rana narrowly missed a bronze medal even as Asia-Pacific champion Harmeet Kahlon moved to the second spot in men's golf at the 13th Asian Games today. The Indian women footballers, however, were mauled 0-16 by fancied China in a Group B encounter.

Playing without Leander Paes, the Indian tennis team received a jolt when Mahesh Bhupathi and Prahlad Srinath lost their singles to big-serving Japanese Satoshi Iwabuchi and Hideki Kaneko in the semi-final.

But Indian golfers were in sight of medals, narrowly trailing the leaders in both the men's individual and team events at the Alpine Sports and Country Club in Bangkok.

Kahlon (141) gave a dazzling display, shooting three under par to move up to second place, two strokes behind Tomohiro Kondo (139) of Japan.

Kahlon, who was in third spot yesterday, sank four birdies and a bogie in his second round of 69, matched only by Kondo and Gerald Rosales of the Philippines.

In the team event, India shared second spot with Taiwan with an aggregate of 435. Japan with 430 leads the pack.

The scores of Kahlon (141), Amit Luthra (148), and Digvijay Singh (146) were considered.

The Philippines (440), South Korea (449), Pakistan (450), and China (451) brought up the rear.

In the individual event, Digvijay Singh shot a sub-par round while Luthra and Amit Dubey fared poorly.

In the women's section, 16-year-old Chandigarh-based national champion Parnita Grewal gave an improved performance, returning a card of three over par, and was lying in eighth position with an aggregate of 152 (77, 75).

But the two other Indian ladies -- Nonita Lal Qureshi and Urvashi Sethi-Sondhi -- gave a lacklustre display, carding seven over par and 11 over par, respectively, in the second round.

Jaspal Rana misses bronze in tiebreaker

Rana narrowly missed the bronze in the 25m standard pistol event.

At the Hua Mark shooting range, the Indian scored 573 to tie for third place with Thai and South Korean shooters. In the first three-series shootouts, all three then tied with 139 points.

In the second shootout of single-series shots, however, Rana managed only 41 of a possible 50 to settle for fifth spot.

Thailand's Wirat Karndee came first in the final shootout to take the bronze while South Korean Byung Taek Park finished fourth.

Rana managed 195 and 190 in the first two series of four bursts. But his final series went awry and he got only 187.

His total was just one point less than Jing Yongde of China and Dilshod Mukhtarov of Uzbekistan who tied for the top spot with 574.

In the shootout, Jing got 135 as against 131 for Mukhtarov to earn the gold.

Vivek Singh and Asian Games veteran Ashok Pandit, the country's other shooters in the pistol event today, finished fifth with a poor 557 each.

Indian chief coach Sunny Thomas said that though Rana's 573 was a good score, he had shot over 580 in practice sessions. "Rana does not normally crack up when the tension builds, but today he missed very badly in the last series of shots," he explained.

"Both Ashok and Vivek were capable of scoring over 566 and this should have definitely brought India a medal," he added.

The team gold in the event went to North Korea with 1,707 points while Kazakhstan and China finished second and third with 1,704 and 1,695, respectively. South Korea finished ahead of India with 1,692.

Rana's favourite event, the centre-fire pistol, is on Sunday.

India, which has sent a strong pack of 19 shooters to the Games, is yet to win any medal from the sport though coach Thomas said the present team was the strongest India has ever fielded.

The team has only three more events -- centre-fire pistol, spot rifle 50m (women), and trap -- to go.

Women kayakists finish last in the final

The Indian women kayakists return home empty-handed with K Minimar and S Srimati finishing last among six finalists with a poor timing of 2:07.24 seconds in the K-2 500m event.

At a far-flung reservoir in Payata, their timing in the final was much lower than their performance both in the heats and semi-final yesterday.

Beibei Gao and Hong Yan of China with a timing of 1:54.64 claimed the gold while the silver went to the Kazakhstan pair of Natalya Sergeyeva and Tatyana Sergina, who clocked 1:57.28.

Uzbekistan got the bronze.

Swimmers fail to qualify

The Indian swimmers failed to create a ripple in the pool. Olympian Sebastian Xavier, Sandeep Kakkar and Richa Mishra failed to even get past the heats of their respective events.

Xavier, who dominated the South Asian scene in the event for more than 10 years, finished with a poor timing of 24.41 seconds in the fourth heat of the 50m freestyle.

Naachae Ravil (Uzbekistan) came first with a timing of 23.83 seconds.

Kakkar, who had turned in a good time in the trials along with Xavier, finished fourth in his heat, clocking 25.24 seconds.

The favourite for the gold in the event, Chengji, broke the Asian Games record by clocking 22.99 seconds to finish first in his heat. The previous record of 22.99 seconds was clocked by China's Shen Jiang Qiang in 1990 at Beijing.

In the women's 200m individual event, Richa Mishra failed to qualify for the final, clocking a poor 2:36.96.

But no medal was expected from the female swimmers, who are in the age group of 13-16, and they had been sent only to get some international exposure.

UNI