Indian swimmers pick two bronze

India's poor show in the pool continued as its swimmers could lay their hands on only two bronze medals in the aquatic events of the inaugural Afro-Asian Games in Hyderabad on Monday.

The medals were won by the relay teams on the third day of competition, which saw one-legged South African Natalie Dutoit hogging limelight with her silver medal-winning effort in the 800 metres freestyle.

Natalie, whose leg was amputated from the knee following an accident in 2000, got a standing ovation when she finished the 800 metres freestyle in 9 min 17.92 seconds. The event was dominated by Africans, with Shrone Austine of Seychelles claiming the gold with a timing of 9:16.46s and South Africa's Velia Janse Van R taking the bronze in 9:19.74s.

India's bronze medals came in the two 4x100m freestyle relays.

The quartet of Shikha Tondon, Lisa Mahanta, Remya V and Ambica Iyenger finished in 4:16.53s, well behind gold medal winners Korea [Cho A Ra, Park Kyung Hwa, Shin Bo Mi Kim Mi Ryung], who clocked 4:00.07s, and South Africa [Christine Zwiegers, Jackie Wellman, Ellen Hight], who timed 4:04.02s.

The men's bronze medal-winning team of Senthil Kumar, Gairik Bardhan, Rajeev K and Benoy Sebastian were quite slow but still got the medal as there were only three teams in the fray.

They completed the race in 4:7.89s, almost 20 seconds slower than the Japanese swimmers, who claimed the gold medal. South Africa won the silver.

Barring the two bronze medals, it was a disappointing day for the Indians in the pool with not even a single swimmer winning a medal in the individual events.

Ambica Iyenger was the first failure for the home side today as she finished sixth in a seven-woman field, clocking a poor 9:55.59s.

In other events, V Sivaranjani, despite getting a very fine start, failed to win a medal while Mandar Divse and Mir Akbar Ali had a very ordinary outing.

Algeria's Mahrez Mebarekwas won the men's 400m freestyle while the 200m individual medley gold went to Ouying Kunpeng of China.

Korea's Lee Sun A won the women's 200m individual medley gold.

The day was also disappointing for Pakistani swimmers who failed to win even a single medal.

Kiran Khan was last in the women's 200m individual medley while the Pakistani women's freestyle relay team took the last position.