Asian Games, Rowing: Arjun and Arvind show their class to clinch silver

The Indians clocked 6:28.18 minutes at the Fuyang Water Sports Centre to finish behind China who rowed the 2000m distance in 6:23.16 minutes. Uzbekistan were third with 6:33.42 minutes. India won their first medal in the discipline at Doha Asiad in 2006 when Kiran Yalamanchi and Bijender Singh won a bronze. The event was competed across 1000m in Doha. India’s next medal in men’s lightweight double sculls came in 2018 with Rohit Kumar and Bhagwan Singh clocking a time of 7:04.61 minutes in Palembang.

“It is a historic result and a proud moment for Indian rowing. It is a very credible performance. At the team meeting yesterday, we had motivated the boys to push for a time of 6:23 or 6:24, but we’ll take this result,” Bajrang Lal Takhar, a three-time single sculls medallist at the Asian Games, said. Takhar is travelling with the squad as a team official.

The result assumes greater significance when one considers that the pair’s training took a beating after Arvind injured his lower back in the months leading up to the Asian Games. “It is a muscle issue that didn’t need surgery. My coaches and physio worked really hard on me to get me competition-ready,” Arvind, a Naib Subedar in the Indian Army’s Bengal Engineering Corps, said.

“In fact, my back is quite stiff today because we pushed really hard, but this makes it all worth it,” he said, pointing at the medal.

The Indians started well and at the 500m mark threatened to overtake the Chinese pair of Junjie Fan and Man Sun. The local favourites crossed the first 500m in 1:33.10 minutes with the Indians hot on heels. Arvind and Arjun rowed 500 metres in 1:33.80 minutes, less than a second separating the two boats.

“We were only microseconds behind the Chinese at that stage. We had decided to start well and give them good competition. China were always the favourites, so we thought if we stay close to them, we can take care of Uzbekistan,” said Arjun.

The Chinese, however, kicked on from there on. The gap became 1.80 seconds at the 1000m mark, 2.73 seconds at 1500m, and 5.02 seconds when the Chinese crossed the finish line.

“We always wanted to win an Asian Games medal and were working for it for the past 4-5 years. We made it to the semi-finals of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 as well, so this result doesn’t shock us. We never thought about the colour of the medal, but now that we have wn a silver, we shall try for gold in the next edition,” Arjun, a Naib Subedar with Rajputana Rifles, said.

“Considering the fact that we lost 20-25 training days, we will accept this result. It would have been better had we done our personal best here which is in the range of 6:19 minutes,” Arvind added.

The Indian pair made it to the medal race after topping their repechage round with a time of 6:55.78 minutes. They had clocked 6:27.45 minutes for second place in Heat 1 to make the repechage. “We are happy that we did our best here. Our timing in the final was better than our repechage time which is a big plus,” said Arvind.

Later, Babu Lal Yadav and Lekh Ram won a bronze in men’s pair event with a time of 6:50.41 minutes behind Hong Kong and Uzbekistan who won gold and silver respectively. India also took a silver in Men’s Eight with the team of Charanjeet Singh, DU Pande, Naresh Kalwaniya, Neeraj, Neetesh Kumar, Ashish, Bheem Singh, Jaswinder Singh and Punit Kumar clocking a timing of 5:43.01. China won gold in 5:40.17 while Indonesia, who were leading India at the 1000m mark, ended third in 5:45.51 minutes.

In the men’s double sculls final, India’s Satnam Singh and Parminder Singh were second till the halfway mark before dropping to third at 1500m and eventually finishing last in the six-pair race. They timed 6:40.90 minutes.

The women’s four team of Aswathi PB, Nilesh Salgaonkar, Priya Devi Thangjam, and Rukmani finished fifth (7:12.40) among six competitors.