The men’s double sculls pair of Arjun Lal Jat and Ravi struck gold and Parminder Singh claimed silver in single sculls as India had another good day at the 2021 Asian Rowing Championships on Saturday.
In the double sculls final, the Indian combine of Arjun Lal, who recently participated in the Tokyo Olympic Games and finished 11th, and Ravi crossed the finish line in first place in 6:57.383 min, finishing ahead of China’s Zhang Li Qing and Lu Ting (7:02.357) and Uzbekistan’s M. Davronov and A. Dorjov (7:07.734), who had to be content with silver and bronze medals respectively.
Parminder Singh finished second behind Uzbekistan’s Shakhboz Khulmurzev in 8:07.323 to win silver in men’s single sculls. This was Parminder’s maiden medal in an international competition. The Uzbekistan rower won gold in 7:56.307, while Indonesia’s Memo Memo took bronze in 8:20.055.
Starting in Lane 3 in the men’s double sculls final, Olympian Arjun Lal and Ravi got off to a good start and established an early lead by the 1500-metre mark in the 2000 metre race. They maintained the advantage over the Chinese pair when they crossed the 1000m marker and further extended it with the last 500m to go, thus keeping their advantage from start to finish.
In the single sculls final, Parminder surged ahead as he completed the first 500m in 1:51.52 while his Uzbekistan opponent was trailing the five-man field with 1:54.17.
But by the 1000-metre mark, the Uzbekistan rower had taken a slight lead by clocking 3:54.26 as compared to 3:54.31 by Parminder.
The Uzbek further extended the lead by the time they reached the 500m-mark and maintained his advantage till they crossed the finish line.
India would be expecting more medals from Olympian Arvind Singh in lightweight single scull and men’s coxless quadruple sculls, as they have also reached the final.
Sunday is the last day of the event in which India is being represented by a contingent of 16 rowers.
