India’s chief national rowing coach and Dronacharya Ismail Baig is impressed with the team winning one gold, two silver and two bronze medals in the recently-held Asian rowing championship in Cheongju (South Korea).
“This is pretty impressive after the disappointment in the 2018 Asian Games (when a foreign coach was at the helm). The way the rowers showed great fighting spirit and resilience augurs well as we prepare with an eye on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics,” Ismail Baig told Sportstar.
The light weight coxless four men’s team comprising Charanjit Singh, Tejas Shinde, Jegan Sekar and Jasveer Singh won the gold, while the silver medals were won by Sawarn Singh, Rohit Kumar, Jakar Khan and Sukhmeet Singh and in light weight double scull by Arjun Lal and Arvind Singh.
Baig, who is now with the Indian camp in Pune having trained many Asiad and Asian medallists at Hussain Sagar Lake here for close to two decades, also informed that coxed eight team of Akshat, Khushpreet, Bhupinder, Iqbal Singh, Malkeet Singh, Gurinder Singh, Puneet Kumar, Gurmeet Singh, Pandey and the men’s double scull team of Sukhmeet Singh and Sawarn Singh too picked up a bronze each.
Spirited show
The national coach was equally pleased with the Indian para rowers at the Asian meet at the same venue winning one bronze in the para mixed 4+ team Kuldeep Singh, Jyoti, Kritika, Narayana won a bronze.
“The highlight of the para squad was the effort of the IAF officer Wg. Cdr. Shantanu, who made history by being the first paraplegic Indian to take part in the event. He finished a highly creditable fifth,” says Ismail Baig.
“Yes, I must say it was a spirited show by Shantanu in his first-ever event and with his fifth position, he has qualified for the April Para Olympic qualifying event too,” he said.
The national coach says that Shantanu has the skills, is hard-working and has great spirit to make it to the 2020 Paralympics if he wins a gold in the Olympic qualifiers in Korea next April.
Comments
SHARE