India continued its dominance on Day Two of the Track Asia Cup cycling tournament.
Ronaldo Laitanjam broke the junior Asian record of men’s junior 200m time trial event in the qualifying round at the Yamuna Velodrome, IG Sports Complex here. He clocked 10.065 seconds and shattered the previous record held by China’s Liu Qi, who had completed the race in 10.149 seconds in 2018.
After breaking the record, Ronaldo said, “Qualifying for the finals was in my mind but when I saw the scoreboard, I was surprised and happy.”
Coach R. K. Sharma added, “Juniors are doing well and many more records will break in the coming years. The team is preparing hard and results are coming.”
India added three more medals to its medal tally. Venkappa Shiva K. won one more gold when he won the 3-km men’s junior individual pursuit. He clocked 3:30.106s followed by Mula Ram of SAINCA (3:31.833s) and Labib Ali of Iran (3:53.723s). After the record-breaking performance by Ronaldo, Nikita Nisha won the qualifying round among junior women with a timing of 11:945s and gave the host nation a hope for gold in the final.
Double joy for India
It was double joy for India when Elangbam Devi and Irungbam Devi forced a silver-bronze medal finish in the elite women’s 3-km individual pursuit race. Punam Chand captured the silver medal in the elite men’s 4-km individual pursuit event and fell short against Malaysia's Emam Firdaus Mohammad Zamri, who won the gold medal. Dimitry Potapenko of Kazakhstan settled for the bronze.
Esow Alben, a two-time junior world champion, finished second behind Tsz Chun Law of Hong Kong in the men’s 200m time trial. The Indian clocked 10:319 seconds compared to Law’s 10:190 seconds. Amarjeet Singh Nagi of India finished third.
Swasti Singh won the bronze medal in junior women’s 2-km individual pursuit. She has been representing India's second team — Sports Authority of India National Cycling Academy. Kristina Titovskaya of Kazakhstan won the gold while Yanina Kuskova of Uzbekistan captured silver.
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