Indian juniors brought cheers to the hosts camp on the opening day of the Track Asia Cup at the IG Stadium Complex Velodrome here on Tuesday as they won 09 medals (05 Gold, 04 Silver & 0 Bronze) to set the event ablaze. 8 Final events were held today and India won Gold of 5 events.
Ashwin Patil opened India’s campaign by winning a Gold medal in the 15km Point Race event in the Junior Men category; Patil scored 29 points. Ashwin secured 5 points each in first 4 sprints and made an easy win while compatriot Naman Kapil won Silver with 29 points followed by Hassan of Saudi Arabia who secured bronze of the event with 21 points.
Team of Sushikala Agashe & Mayuri added another Gold to India’s tally by winning Gold of Team Sprint event of Junior Women category with 37.000s ahead of India’s another team SAINCA where Joyshree & Vaishnavi clocked 39.544s to secure Silver. Bronze medal went to UAE.
Today’s limelight was Sushikala Agashe, who showed her supremacy in 500m Time Trial event & added Gold to her tally with 37.702s followed by Evanglina Liontin of Indonesia who clocked 41.545s. UAE won Bronze of this event. Sushikala’s average speed was 47.743km/hr.
A National record was also set by Men Elite Team of Sahil Kumar, Ranjit Singh & Apollonius when they clocked 47.399s (better than Asian Games Gold medal time) in Team Sprint event and won Gold. Saudi Arabia was far behind to catch them and had to satisfy with Silver (49.248s).
Hosts favorite Deborah failed to convert the color of medal this year again in Women Elite event of 500m Race Distance and managed silver medal with 36.083 seconds after losing to China’s Yufang Guo who finished the race in 35.071 seconds. Deborah’s average speed was 49.885 km/hr which was not enough to win the Gold. Indonesia’s Crismonita Dwi Putri got bronze of the event.
Deborah also lost Gold of Team Sprint event and secured Silver with Aleena Reji with a timing of 35.404 while team of Chaorul Song & Shanju Bao of China won Gold in 34.073. Bronze gone to Indonesia with 35.938s.
India’s Men Junior Team (JK Ashwin, Mayur Pawar & Abhishek Kashid) won Gold with 47.397s in Team Sprint event followed by Saudi Arabia who secured Silver medal with 51.522 followed by UAE.
Another Silver came in Men Junior Team Pursuit (4km) event (4:38.632s) for India. Saudi Arabia won Gold of this event (4:38.220s). SAINCA won Bronze of this event.
At the end of day 1, a delighted Coach RK Sharma said, “when your athletes starts winning medals then every coach’s heart says Ye dil maange more”.
Further, he added, “I’m happy with the commendable show of our athletes and in 2018 Asian Games I’m confident that our athletes will surely win medals.” He also said that in Cycling, medal is not important – timing is important and our riders are clocking good timings.