Day 4, Asian Games: 4 Indians Win Bronze Medals in Wushu

Debutant teenager Saurabh Chaudhary clinched India's first shooting gold of the 18th Asian Games, fetching the top honours in the men's 10m air pistol event on Day 3 of the Asian Games on Tuesday.

The 16-year-old Chaudhary, who topped the qualifying round, shot a Games record score of 240.7 to pip Japan's Tomoyuki Matsuda (239.7) in an exciting final.

India’s wrestlers continued to shine on Day 2 as Divya Kakran added the first bronze to India's wrestling tally at the 18th Asian Games, beating Taipei's Chen Wenling in the third-place play-off bout for the 68kg category.

More medals are expected for the Indian contingent on Day 4 of the Games. India’s shooting star Manu Bhaker will be competing in the 25m pistol event at 8 am IST. The Indian archery team will take part in the Compound Women's Team event at the same time.

The Indian men’s hockey team, who thrashed Indonesia 17-0 in their Pool A opener, will take on Hong Kong in their next Pool match at 1 pm IST.

Follow live updates from Day 4 of the Asian Games here.

India’s shooting star Manu Bhaker’s 25m pistol event is now underway. Also competing in the same event is shooter Jeevan Rahi.

Also in action right now are Anjum Moudgil and Gayathri N, competing in the 50m rifle 3 positions event.

Earlier in the tournament, Bhaker along with Abhishek Verma failed to qualify for the finals of the 10m air pistol mixed team event.

Despite finishing first in their respective heats, swimmers Sajan Prakash and Avinash Mani fail to qualify for the Men's 100m Butterfly final.

Clocking 54.06, Sajan finished 12th in the standings, while Mani finished with a timing of 56.98.

Another stunning performance by CWG gold medallist Manu Bhaker! The 16-year-old is on top of the table in the qualification round of the 25m air pistol event.

After shooting 99, 98 & 100 in her three series, her total score is 297/30

Rani Sarnobat is in the seventh position with a score of 288.

Team India have qualified for the Men's 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay after finishing on top in their heat.

The team of Sajan Prakash, Virdhawal Khade, Anshul Kothari, Aaron Dsouza clocked a timing of 3:25.17.

The final is scheduled to take place at 5.30 pm IST.

Shooter Manu Bhaker qualifies for the 25m Pistol Women Final after finishing first in the qualifier. With a score of 593/600, the 16-year-old sets the qualification games record.

In the Precision round, Bhaker shot 99, 98 and 100 in the three series to finish with a total of 297/300. She then added 296 in the Rapid round to finish a total of 593.

Also competing in the final after finishing seventh in the qualifiers will be Rahi Sarnobat, who qualified with a score of 580/600.

Final starts at 1.30pm IST.

Ankita Raina has reached the semi-final of the women’s singles event and has assured herself of a medal.

Raina beat Hong Kong’s Eudice Wong Chong in straight sets 6-4, 6-1 to book a berth in the final four.

This is not the end of her day though, Raina will be seen taking the court for two Round of 16 matches. She teams up with Prathana Thombare in women’s doubles and will also play mixed doubles with Rohan Bopanna.

Indian rowers Rohit Kumar and Bhagwan Singh topped the repechage round in the men's lightweight double sculls with a timing of 7:12.23 in the Asian Games to qualify for the main A-final.

Big upset! Second seed Ramanathan Ramkumar loses 6-3, 4-6, 3-6 to Uzbekistan’s Karimov Jurabek in the men's singles Round of 16.

Anjum Moudgil and Gaayathri Nithyanandam fail to qualify for the final in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Women event.

Anjum shot a total of 1159 to finish 9th in the qualifiers, missing a place in the final by just one point.

Gaayathri finished 19th, with a total score of 1148.

With the freestyle events in wrestling now over, focus has moved the to Greco Roman event and Harpreet Singh has won his opening bout of the 87 kg category. He beat Korea’s Park Heageun 4-1 to enter the quarter-finals.

In the 77 kg category, Gurpreet Singh has beaten Natal Apichai of Thailand 9-0 and is also through to the quarters.

In the 130 kg category though, Naveen lost his opening bout 4-1 to China’s Meng Lingzhe 1-4.

India's wushu athlete Mayanglambam Gyandash Singh finished fourth in the men's taijijian category.

Gyandash, 26, scored 9.70 points to miss out on the bronze medal which was won with 9.71 points by Myanmar's Ko Ko Nyein Chan. Chinese Chen Zhouli successfully defended his title with 9.76 points. The second place went to Japanese Araya Tomohiro, who scored 9.72.

India’s first Gold medallist from these Asian Games, Bajrang Punia is back home already and received a massive welcome at the Delhi airport last night.

The wrestler was greeted by his mentor Yogeshwar Dutt at the airport, who himself is also an Asian Games gold medallist.

Defending champions India started their campaign on Monday with a 17-0 demolition of hosts Indonesia and they’re looking quite the dominant side on the field today as well against Hong Kong.

Barely four minutes into the game and India have taken a 3-0 lead.

87 kg category wrestler Harpreet Singh has marched into the semis after beating Japan’s Masato Sumi 8-0. However, the other Indian in the quarters, Gurpreet Singh has lost his bout 6-8 to Iran’s Mohammadali Geraei 6-8.

Only half the match over and India lead 45 ranked Hong Kong 14-0.

And since the goal-scorers are getting hard to keep track of, I’m just going to put it down in bullet points.

1. Akashdeep Singh - 1 goal
2. Manpreet Singh - 2 goals
3. Rupinder Pal Singh - 2 goals
4. SV Sunil - 1 goal
5. Vivek Sagar - 1 goal
6. Lalit Upadhyay - 2 goals
7. Mandeep Singh - 2 goals
8. Amit Rohidas - 1 goal
9. Harmanpreet Singh - 1 goal
10. Varun Kumar - 1 goal

Uzbekistan’s Rustam Assakalov needed just 38 seconds to take a 10-0 lead over Harpreet in the semi-final and that was enough for him to be awarded the win by technical superiority. Indian is not out of contention for a gold, in fact no Indian wrestler has made it into the finals today.

Harpreet will now fight for the bronze at 6:15pm IST.

That's the end of the third quarter, and India have added 4 more goals in the last 15 minutes while Hong Kong are yet to open their tally.

In the fourth penalty corner attempt within a minute, Lalit Upadhyay manages to score India’s 16th goal. Manpreet Singh stops the ball, Harmanpreet shoots it towards the goal and Upadhyay’s final touch helps India extend their lead in the 34th minute.

Akashdeep Singh gets his hat-trick! Mandeep sets up the goal for his teammate, and all Akashdeep has to do is push the ball in. India lead 17-0 after 39 minutes.

Just as the 15 minutes of the third quarter are completed, Akashdeep Singh asks for a review, and India are handed a PC. Manpreet Singh slips while receiving the ball from SV Sunil, but drag flicker Rupinder Pal Singh still manages to net the ball with a direct hit.

The women’s 25m pistol final with India’s Manu Bhaker and Rahi Sarnobat is now underyway.

Just 16, Manu topped the qualifying round with a Games record score of 593, while Rahi was seventh with 580 points. Manu got 297 points in the three-series precision round, with scores of 99, 98 and 100 respectively. She scored 296 in the three-series rapid round, with scores of 100, 97 and 99 respectively.

Manu's total of 593 was eight points ahead of second best performer, South Korean Minjung Kim.

After the first set of five shots, Rahi Sarnobat has shot a perfect score of five and shot into the lead, Manu Bhaker shot a five and has slipped to third.

Rahi is leading the final after the second series as well, having shot another perfect score of 5. She’s now at 10 points while Manu managed to get two shots on target and has a cumulative score of 6 now.

Four sets of shots taken and Rahi continues to remain in the lead with 17 points out of 20. Manu stays on fifth with 13 points.

Teipei’s Chiachen Tien is the first shooter to be cut from the final.

After each set of 5 shots, one shooter will now get eliminated till the gold medal is decided.

After finishing the qualifiers in the top spot with an Asian Games record, pressure seems to have gotten the best of Manu Bhaker once again. The Haryana teen has been eliminated from the final and finishes sixth in the 25m pistol event.

The other Indian in the event, Rahi Sarnobat, continues to remain in the lead.

Another massive win for the Indian men’s hockey team! They thrash Hong Kong 26-0 in their second Pool A match, breaking an 86-year-old record to register the biggest victory margin in Indian history! The previous best was 24-1.

It was raining goals in the final quarter, with India netting 8 more goals in the last 15 minutes.

Just about two minutes into the final quarter, and Dilpreet Singh scored India’s 19th goal. Chinglensana Singh takes that lead to 20-0 in the 50th minute.

Harmanpreet Singh converted two penalty corners in successive minutes to take extend India's lead to 22 in the 52nd minute.

Simranjeet, Lalit and Harman scored three field goals as India looked to finish the game at 25-0. But Rupinder Pal Singh nets a goal in the dying minutes, and India win their second straight win with four players claiming hat-tricks.

Three shooters left in this final and after 5 shots it is Korea’s Kim Mingyung who will be taking the bronze. Rahi though has lost the lead for the first time in the final, Thailand’s Naphaswan Yangpaiboon goes into the final set of five shots that will decide the gold medallist.

The final set of five shots taken and both the shooters are tied at 34 points and there will be shoot-off of 5 shots for gold!

Update: Both Rahi and Yangpaiboon both shot 4 out of 5 in the shoot-off and there will be a second shoot-off for the gold.

Edge of the seat much?

Indian shooter Rahi Sarnobat has bagged a gold medal in the 25m pistol final after two rounds of shoot-off.

Thailand’s Naphaswan Yangpaiboon and Rahi were tied at a Games Record final round score of 34 after 10 rounds of 5 shots each, after which the match went into a shoot-off. Both found the target four times in the shoot-off, leading to another round of five shots where Rahi shot three and the Thai two, ensuring a historic gold for the Kohlapur-born shooter.

The other Indian in this final, Manu Bhaker who qualified in the top spot with a Games Record score, finished at the sixth spot.

The gold now puts India in the sixth spot in the medal tally with four golds, three silvers and four bronze.

Rahi, who had become India's first pistol shooter to win a gold in World Cup back in 2013, had suffered a serious elbow injury last year. Realising that she needed a tweak in her technique, Rahi roped in Munkhbayar Dorjsuren, a two-time world champion and Olympic medallist from Germany.

"I had to change her technique and I also worked on her a lot on the mental aspect of the game. She was already a high-level shooter and needed some tweak in her game. It was a close final but I had prepared her for the shoot-off," Dorjsuren, who moved to Germany from Mongolia said.

Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan have reached the semi-finals of the men’s doubles badminton event, ensuring India of another medal in tennis. Earlier today, Ankita Raina also booked a spot in the semis of the women’s singles event.

The Indian pair beat Chinese Taipei's Hsieh Cheng and Yang Tsung 6-3, 5-7, (10-1) to reach the semi-final where they play K. Uesugi and S. Shimabukuro of Japan.

When India led 14-0 at half time against minnows Hong Kong China, chief coach Harendra Singh gave just one instruction to his players -- "be ruthless and create your legacy".

The Indian team went on to erase an 86-year-old record by thrashing Hong Kong China 26-0. The defending champions bettered its record set way back in 1932 when the national team, which had legendary Dhyan Chand, Roop Singh and Gurmeet Singh, thrashed USA 24-1 in the Olympics at Los Angeles.

The record for the biggest win remains with New Zealand, who beat Samoa 36-1 in 1994.

Kazakhstan’s Azamat Kustubayev has beaten Harpreet Singh 6-3 in the men’s Greco Roman 87 kg category bronze medal match and that marks the end of India’s wrestling campaign on Day 4 of the Asian Games.

17-year-old Indian Naorem Roshibina Devi has lost her 60kg semi-final to China’s Cai Yingying and will have to settle for bronze.

In the men’s 56kg category, Bui Giang Truong has beaten Indian Santosh Kumar in the semi-final as well and that’s India’s second bronze in the discipline today.

Two more Indians left today in the semis to fight to a place in the gold medal match.

The Indian Men's 4 x 100m freestyle relay team comprising Sajan Prakash, Virdhawal Khade, Anshul Kothari and Aaron Dsouza has finished last in the final. With a time of 3:25.34, they were 12.66 seconds off the pace.

Surya Bhanu Pratap Singh has lost his semi-final Wushu bout to Iran's Erfan Ahangarian.

Surya got injured midway through the bout but continued to play on, visibly struggling during the second half of the match. He continued to compete till the end and lost the match 2-0 and limped off the arena.

The returned to the middle for the announcement of the final decision and after Erfan was declared the winner, he picked up Surya in his arms and helped him go back to his support staff.

The last of the Indians competing in the Wushu semis today, Narendra Grewal has also lost his match and will be returning with a bronze medal. In this sport, both losing semi-finallists are also given a meddle.

That’s a total tally of four bronze in Wushu for India this 2018 Asian Games.