Ronaldo celebrates birthday with silver medal at Asian Track Cycling

Ronaldo (left) at the medal podium

Birjit Yumnam

New Delhi, 22 June 2022:

The last day of the Asian Track Cycling Championship 2022 ended with India’s Ronaldo Singh producing a terrific performance winning a historic silver medal in the sprint event of senior category.

Ronaldo, the show stopper hogged the limelight in the men elite sprint. This was his third medal in the championship. Earlier, he had won bronze medals in 1Km Time Trial and Team Sprint events. On Wednesday, he gave a tough fight to Japan’s experienced rider Kento Yamasaki but finished with a silver. Yamasaki defeated Ronaldo in back-to-back two races to finish at the top of the podium. Kazakhstan’s Andrey Chugay won Bronze in the event.

In the morning, Ronaldo defeated Kazakhstan’s Andrey Chugay in the Semifinal. Ronaldo lost the first race but bounced back to win the next two races to storm into the final.

After settling the Silver medal on his birthday, Ronaldo said, “Gold was in my mind but I’m also happy with the first ever Silver, this is the best ever performance of my career and in every tournament I improved my technique, this is most important and with the blessings of my family, I achieved it.”

 

 

Indian Junior Cyclist Birjit Yumnam added one more Bronze for himself as well for India, he secured 23 points in 15km Points Race of Men Junior category and was unlucky by 1 point to grab the Silver as his opponent from Korea Sungyeon Lee secured 24 points for the same. Gold was won by Farrukh Bobosherov of Uzbekistan.

A big surprise of the day was when 19-year-old Chayanika Gogoi opened the Indian tally with Bronze over Kazakhstan’s favourite Rinata Sultanova in 10km Women Scratch Race finals. Youri Kim won Gold while Kie Furuyama of Japan clinched Silver.

Chayanika Gogoi expressed her happiness at winning the medal. She said that “I never missed my training and was very glad that the hard work paid off. My sole aim is to represent and win medals for the country”.

The final day witnessed exuberant performances on the Velodrome with finals of 10 events taking place. However, there were a handful of crashes too but the pain was all erased in the enthusiasm of the cyclists.

Japan topped the medal tally with 18 Gold, 7 Silver and 2 Bronze medals in the 41st Senior & 28th Junior Asian Track & 10th Para Track Cycling Championships held at IGI Sports Complex here. In the world class field, the Indian Cycling team finished their campaign by winning 23 medals including 2 Gold, 6 Silver & 15 Bronze in the Championships which is best ever performance of any Indian Cycling contingent. Korea finished second with 12 Gold, 14 Silver & 3 Bronze medals while Kazakhstan secured third place with 4 Gold, 4 Silver & 3 Bronze.

At the end of championships, delighted Maninder Pal Singh, General Secretary of Cycling Federation of India said, “We started off as the underdogs but we performed more than what was expected from us. He further added that when your athletes start winning medals at the international arena, then every one’s heart says “Ye dil maange more”. I’m happy with the commendable show of our athletes and in the 2022 Commonwealth Games, I’m confident that our athletes will surely give a tough fight to opponents.”

 COMBINED MEDAL TALLY OF 41 ST SENIOR & 28 TH JUNIOR ASIAN TRACK CYCLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

COUNTRY GOLD SILVER BRONZE

JAPAN 18 7 2

KOREA 12 14 3

KAZAKHSTAN 4 4 3

THAILAND 3 1 2

INDIA 2 6 15

MALAYSIA 2 5 6

IRAN 2 1 3

UZBEKISTAN 1 0 6

UAE 1 0 0

INDONESIA 0 1 0

MEDAL TALLY OF 41 ST SENIOR & 28 TH JUNIOR ASIAN TRACK CYCLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

COUNTRY GOLD SILVER BRONZE

JAPAN 15 7 2

KOREA 12 14 3

KAZAKHSTAN 4 4 3

MALAYSIA 2 5 6

UZBEKISTAN 1 0 6

UAE 1 0 0

INDIA 0 4 13

INDONESIA 0 1 0

IRAN 0 0 3

MEDAL TALLY OF 10 TH PARA TRACK CYCLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

COUNTRY GOLD SILVER BRONZE

THAILAND 3 1 2

JAPAN 3 0 0

INDIA 2 2 2

IRAN 2 1 0

Press release

Qualifier Anshuman packs off 2nd-seed Divyansh

Alappuzha, June 22: As qualifier Anshuman Agarwal from Goa celebrates his 3-2 victory against Divyansh Srivastava, the second seed from Uttar Pradesh must be licking his wounds, mulling over the first-round loss in the 83rd Junior and Youth National Table Tennis Championships at the YMCA facilities, here today.

The UP boy, a potential challenger to top-seed Payas’ hegemony, has to blame it on his lackadaisical performance, and that too, after levelling the score 2-2. To begin with, the Goan lad pushed the envelope beyond his capacity to come out the winner was credible. On the other hand, Divyansh failed to finish his points. In the decider, both had their opportunities and experienced Divyansh should have clinched the game. But a few unforced errors and, in his anxiety to finish, forced himself when he could have kept his cool.

A few other matches in the section witnessed intense battles. Samrath Sharma of Chandigarh posed some problems to Priyanuj Bhattacharyya of Assam when he levelled the score 2-2. The Assam lad, however, won the decider on minimal points to move into the round of 32.  

Tharun Shanmugam of Tamil Nadu, leading 2-0, lost his grip over the round of 64 matches when Soumil Mukherjee of West Bengal seized the moment to win 8-11, 4-11, 12-10, 11-9, 11-9. Shivam Chandra of UP made amends in the nick of time to win his first-round match 11-8, 11-8, 4-11, 9-11, 12-10 against P. Yeshwanth of Karnataka.

Fortunately, however, all the eight seeds sailed into the round of 32 in the Youth Boys Under-19 in their first-round matches. Seventh-seed Divyansh Srivastava, despite scratchy, defeated Priyansh Bhati of Rajasthan 3-1 to move up. All the other seeded players went through the motions, but the race could intensify as the rounds get closer to the last-four stages that get underway tomorrow.

Important Results:

Youth Boys U-17 (Round 64): Ankur Bhaattacharjee (Ben) bt Sujan Bharadwaj (Kar) 11-7, 11-9, 11-7; Sarth Mishra (UP) bt Chaitanya Karode (MP) 11-4, 11-5, 11-5; Preyesh Raj Suresh (TNTTA) 11-7, 12-10, 11-8; Jash Modi (Mah) bt Udit Sachdev (Mah) 11-5, 11-7, 11-5; K.J. Aakash (mar) bt Aditya Jain (TTFI) 11-6, 11-8, 11-6; Aadarsh Om Chhetri (Del) bt H. Lalruatsanga (TTFI) 11-8, 8-11, 11-8, 9-11, 11-6; Shankhadip Das (Ben) bt Gaurav Panchangam (Mah) 11-9, 11-3, 11-2; Amshuman Agarwal (Goa) bt Divyansh Srivastava (UP) 11-6, 12-10, 4-11, 9-11, 11-9.

Youth Boys U-17 (Round 64): Payas Jain (Del) bt Manoj Arnav (mah) 11-9, 11-8, 11-7; Varun Balusuri (Telg) 11-4, 11-8, 8-11, 6-11, 11-8; H. Jeho (Miz) bt Priyanuj Bhattacharyya (Asm) 11-3, 11-5, 11-8; Ankur Bhattachaaryee (Ben) bt Kesavan Kannan (Telg) 11-5, 11-5, 8-11, 11-8; Deepit R. Patil (Mah) bt Anish Sontakke (Mah) 11-7, 11-6, 11-2; Aadarsh Om Chhetri (Del) bt Anokh G. Nair (Ker) 11-5, 11-6, 11-3; Divyansh Srivastava (UP) bt Priyansh Bhati (Raj) 11-7, 13-11, 10-12, 11-6; Yashansh Malik (Del) bt Samrath Sharma (Chd) 11-5, 11-2, 11-2.

A TTFI press release

Ronaldo Singh advances to semifinal in sprint event on day 4 of Asian Track Cycling Championships

Himanshi Singh 

Harashveer Singh Sekhon 

 New Delhi:  June 21, 2022: As we head into Day 4 at the Asian Track Cycling Championships, it is Japan that leads the medal tally with 11 golds. The Japanese have won 11 golds, 6 silver and 2 bronze, with a total of 19 medals. Three of their golds have come from Para Cycling.

 The Koreans are in second position with 10G, 9S, 2B ahead of Kazakhstan (4G, 3S, 1B). India is at 5^th place with 2G, 5S & 13B.

 Today there were 6 finals but India’s search for a medal on 4^th day of the Championship continues to draw a blank. The growing event ‘Cycling’ in India couldn’t give any medal to India at the end of 4^th day of the Championship but Indian Cyclists won the hearts by giving their best ever performances.

 Harashveer Singh Sekhon gave a good fight to the Korean (Euro KIM) & Japanese (Naoki Kojima) Riders in the 30,000m Points race. In this power event, peddlers have to show their endurance & sprint performance where peddlers have to go for Sprints with full energy after every 10 laps of 120 laps race.

 Sekhon was in the leading bunch and peddling neck to neck with opponents & finishing creditable 4^th with 43 points behind Korea (61 points) & Japan (60 points) riders. Hammadi Al Mirza secured Gold in this event with 69 points.

Ronaldo Singh won his quarter final event of the Men's Sprint event and advanced to Semi Final where he will challenge to Andrey Chugay of Kazakhstan. Ronaldo clocked 10.394s (69.27km/h) & 10.234s (70.353 km/h) respectively to defeat Jee One Park of Korea in continuous two sprints.

Junior Cyclist Himanshi Singh earned second place in the 7.5km scratch race but was later disqualified on the ground of dangerous driving. She was blocked behind the Malaysian rider and in an attempt to go ahead of the Malaysian & Japanese rider, she made a technical fault and was disqualified by the Commissionaire.

The Gold was won by Ci Hui NYO of Malaysia ahead of Japan’s Mizuki Ikeda & Sofiya Karimova of Uzbekistan.

 I had no other option as I was blocked by the riders; you have to learn from every mistake and I will work on my techniques to handle such types of situations in future.” said disappointed Himanshi.

 Star Rider Esow once again failed to win his quarter final event of Men Sprint. He lost to Andrey Chugay of Kazakhstan. Esow finished his journey empty handed in this tournament.

Press release

 

 

First-round clashes fail to raise interests in Jr National TT

 Alappuzha, June 21: The Youth Boys in the Under-17 and Under-19 categories began their trophy campaign on a serious note in the 83rd Junior and Youth National Table Tennis Championships at the YMCA facilities here today.

With 439 matches scheduled for the first day, the business was not usual for all the competitors, especially for the Under-17 boys, who will complete three rounds of their league engagements by tonight. At least a majority of them will, however, get time to relax until the main draw begins tomorrow afternoon. But the Under-19 boys will continue their first-stage action tomorrow morning and finish their decisive third-round contests.

The first-round matches in both sections had fewer surprises as players from weaker states became the whipping boys. But the match between Vijay Malarvannan of TTTA and Vanad Kumar of Punjab raised a few eyebrows as the latter managed to stretch the Tamil Nadu boy. Vijay won 7-11, 11-5, 11-6, 9-11, 11-4 in group 48 in the Under-17 section.

Shreyas Mane of Maharashtra regrouped himself to beat Adhiraja Hazarika of Assam 5-11, 11-9, 4-11, 12-10, 11-3, Haryana’s Naman Arora, trailing 1-2, beat Jyoti Hriday Sharma of Assam 11-4, 9-11, 8-11, 12-10, 11-7, and West Bengal’s Praneet Bhaskar outsmarted his TTFI wildcard rival A. Gourisankar 9-11, 14-12, 9-11, 11-7, 11-7.

Some other matches did have fierce competition as one witnessed between Manikandan Sundar of TNTTA and Anish Sontakke of Maharashtra. The former won 6-11, 11-3, 11-6, 11-6, 11-9. In group 26, Priyanuj Bhattacharyya of Assam defeated Saptashwa Chakraborty of West Bengal 11-4, 7-11, 11-8, 6-11, 11-8 to keep his chance of qualifying for the second stage.

Harkunwar Singh of Punjab did really well to come back from a precarious position to outwit Andhra’s Sri Prabhath Sai 11-9, 6-11, 3-11, 11-5, 11-8. Akhilesh Khajuria of Jammu and Kashmir, despite leading 2-1, could not press home the advantage and went down 11-9, 6-11, 11-5, 9-11, 6-11 to Punjab’s Kirsh in his encounter.

SVN Krishna of Andhra had a tricky outing against Aaryan Rawat of Uttarakhand but the former managed to win 14-16, 11-1, 11-4, 9-11, 11-6. Kerala’s Mohammad A Naffil squandered his best opportunity, after levelling the score 2-2, to bow out of the competition when he lost 8-11, 8-11, 11-4, 11-6, 9-11 in a close match to Soumik Basak of West Bengal.

There was hardly any shift in the Under-19 first-round clashes with the stronger boys going through the motions to win their matches clinically.

A TTFI press release