Guangzhou: Indian shooters drew a blank for the third successive day with a below-par performance but the men's hockey team trounced Bangladesh 9-0 and pugilist Vikas Krishan (60kg) booked a pre-quarterfinal berth on the fifth day of competitions at the Asian Games here on Wednesday.
Indian shooters put up a dismal show on another windy day with only pistol expert and Melbourne Commonwealth Games hero Samaresh Jung coming up with something notable in the morning session of the competitions.
Bespectacled Jung, who earned the nickname 'Goldfinger' after grabbing a record five gold medals four years ago in Melbourne, missed the men's 25m standard pistol shoot-off for the bronze by one point in a straight final to finish 7th overall with 569 points from amongst 39 shooters.
But his two other teammates, Pemba Tamang and Chandrahas Chaudhary, performed very poorly, shooting only 550 and 549 out of 600 to end up 22nd and 23rd respectively and the combined effort cost India a team medal too as they finished fourth with 1668 points, well behind bronze winners North Korea's 1690, from eleven contestants.
World women's prone position champion Tejaswini Sawant too put up a disappointing display and brought up the rear, finishing 23rd out of 45 shooters with a shocking 569 points in the women's 3-position rifle event.
Her teammate Lajjakumari Gauswami ended up a rung below her with the same score and Charanpreet Kaur Nilon secured the 31st spot with 559.
The Indian squad ended up a shocking 9th out of 12 competing teams with 1697 points. China won the gold with 1733, South Korea the silver with 1728 and the bronze was claimed by Iran (1719).
However, 18-year-old boxer Vikas (60kg) beat Thailand's Saylom Ardee in his opening round bout to join Suranjoy Singh (52kg) as the second Indian in the pre-quarters stage. The Haryana-lad, a reigning world youth champion and a
bronze medallist of the inaugural Youth Olympics this year, won 8-1 against Saylom Ardee in his first bout at a senior international event.
The Indian hockey team too delivered by routing Bangladesh 9-0. Penalty corner specialist Sandeep Singh pumped in four goals in that tally to guide India to their second straight victory in the men's Group B league.
Two-time champions India, who opened their campaign to regain the gold they last won in 1998 and qualify for the 2012 Olympics with a facile 7-0 victory over Hong Kong, led 3-0 at half time before upping the pace in the second half and pumping in six more goals to complete the rout.
The Rajpal Singh-led team warmed up nicely for the much-awaited clash with arch-foes Pakistan on November 20.
They took some time to find their bearing in the first half before scoring their 17th victory in 18 meetings against their South Asian rivals and the fifth in as many attempts in the Asiad.
Tushar Khandekar, who combined very well up front with skipper Rajpal, Arjun Halappa and Shivendra Singh, opened the floodgates in the second minute and then found the mark again in the 39th minute.
Sandeep Singh, who was very effective in his penalty corner tries, scored the second goal in the 13th minute, and then fired home thrice more with hits off penalty corners in the 47th, 63rd and 66th minutes for India's seventh and eighth goals before Dharamvir Singh completed the tally a minute from the end.
However, there was disappointment elsewhere with the swimmers failing to make a splash.
After ending India's 24-year-old medal drought in the pool in Asian Games, teen swimming sensation Virdhawal Khade topped his 100m freestyle heats but the effort was not good enough to fetch a place in the finals of the event.
Khade, who clinched a 50m butterfly bronze to become the first Indian swimmer in 24 years to clinch an Asian Games medal, clocked 51.25sec to top the 100m freestyle heats on Wednesday but the eventual eight qualifiers returned with timings of under 51 seconds.
The 19-year-old Indian's effort was not even his personal best in this event which stands at 49.47sec, clocked at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune in 2008.
The other Indian in the event, Aaron Agnel Dsouza finished second behind Khade by clocking 52.71sec.
In the men's 200m individual medley, Rehan Poncha failed to qualify for the finals after finishing sixth in the heats with a timing of 2:08.55sec.
India's woeful show continued in sepaktakraw with both the men's and women's team losing their second consecutive group matches to bow out of medal contention.
After making a disappointing start to their campaign on Tuesday, when the men's team lost to Japan and the women's team was thrashed by South Korea, India once again failed to make a mark on Wednesday, losing to hosts China.
Even as the men's team went down fighting 1-2 against the hosts in Group B, the Indian women could not win a single match in their pool and got beaten 0-3 at the hands of the mighty Chinese eves.
In Taekwando competitions, which started on Wednesday, India's Jasvant lost a closely contested fight against Yulius Fernado of Indonesia 5-6 to crash out of the men's 74kg event.
The cyclists too managed a below par show and signed off without a medal in the track events.
In the men's Points Race (120 laps, 30 km), Atul Kumar and Rajendra Bishnoi finished 15th and 20th respectively.
In the Men's Keirin finals, Prince Herbert Sara Hylem barely managed a ninth-place finish while Bikram Okram Singh was 13th.
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