New Delhi: India grabbed 8 more medals on the final day of the Track Asia Cup 2016 to finish at number 2 on the medal table with 16 medals, 2 behind their best Asia Cup performance. The eight medals of today included 2 gold, 2 silver and 4 bronze medals. Hong Kong finished atop with 18 medals including 11 Gold, 4 Silver and 3 Bronze, while Malaysia finished the competition as number 3 on the medal table with 9 medals.
The Indian Star Cyclist Deborah won gold in her final sprint event with a timing of 12.576 and 12.493 in the first and second round respectively. She beat Zhaojuan of Hong Kong, who clocked 12.820 and 12.734 in both the rounds respectively while third position was awarded to Farina Shawati of Malaysia with a timing of 12.552 and 12.342 respectively. Kezia Vargheese of India stayed fourth. In the Men’s Elite Keirin event, Amarjeet Singh failed to impress and finished at 8th.
In the Men Junior Sprint final, Chun Long and TSZ Chun of Hong Kong won gold and silver respectively. Chun Long clocked 11.315 and 12.842 while Tsz Chun timed his race at 11.445 and 13.098 for the two rounds. Sanuraj P won bronze with a timing of 12.203 and 12.322. Emerson took fourth position with timings 12.225 and 11.352.
Moving on to Men’s Junior Keirin, Emerson won bronze in the event as he finished behind Tsz Chun and Chun Long who took gold and silver respectively.
India bagged the first two positions in Women Junior Sprint final when Nayana Rajesh added a gold and Anu Chutia added a silver to the medal tally by clocking 12.658 & 12.865, and 12.764 & 13.178 respectively. Hoi Wah of Hong Kong won bronze with a timing of 13.644 and 13.300.
India went medal-less in the Men’s Elite Sprint Final as Shih Fang clocked 11.085 and 11.091 while Ali Askari clocked 10.994 and 11.412 to win gold and silver respectively. The bronze medal went to Shih Hsin from Taiwan.
Raj Kumari Devi, Bidya Luxmi Tourangbam, Ratuja Satputhe and G Amritha Regunath won bronze in the Elite Women’s team pursuit, Hong Kong and Kazakhstan took gold & silver respectively.
Speaking about Indian performances at the event, Coach RK Sharma said “I am satisfied with the performance of our cyclists in the Track Asia Cup especially Junior cyclists have shown good performances in this prestigious event and lived upto the expectations. I am sure this event has been a great learning experience for all the cyclists looking ahead Asian Track Cycling Championship in 2017. We have ample time before our next event and our cyclists will surely improve their performance by then”.
In the post match Media briefing, Onkar Singh, Secretary General, CFI said “5 years back, when we took over Cycling Federation of India Indian Cyclists were at 149th place in World Ranking but now Indian Cycling has been improved much and most of our riders are Under-10 rank in UCI World Ranking. The day is not far away when we will win the medals in World Championships.”