Asian Track Cycling Championships: India clinch two more bronze medals on day-3
Jun 21, 2022
New Delhi [India], June 21 : India had a very successful Day 3 at the Asian Track Cycling Championship with 2 bronze medals. Ronaldo Singh bagged the country's first-ever international medal in the 1km Time Trial event. After 3 days of championships, India has now 20 medals in the kitty.
World Junior Champion and Asian Record holder Ronaldo Singh Laitonjam pedalled the cycle with a speed of 58.254 km/h and clocked 1:01.798s to come on the leaderboard. He won the Bronze medal in the 1km Time Trial event of the Men Senior category. This was his & India's first-ever medal in this event. Yuta Obara of Japan won Gold with 1:01.118s (speed 59.902 km/h) and Malaysia's cyclist Mohammad Fadhil clocked 1:01.639s to claim the Silver.
I came here for the Gold but had to be satisfied with the Bronze, I just repeated my last year's performance which was not enough for Gold, to change the colour of the medal - I have to focus more on my technique. About his Olympic plans, Ronaldo added "I would like to build a team for the Team Sprint event where we have already won a World Junior medal. It would give more exposure to the Indian cycling team, paving the way for versatility in our performance as a nation."
Another bronze was added by Birjit Yumnam who pulled away from Ilya Karabutov (Kazakhstan) & Amir Ali (Iran) after 35 laps to claim the third position in the 40 laps race of 10km Scratch race in the Men Junior category. Hwarang KIM of Korea secured the easy Gold while Zulfahmi Aiman of Malaysia finished second.
Shunsuke Imamura of Japan secured the Omnium gold in the Men's Elite category, in the Asian Track Cycling Championship 2022, here at the IGI Stadium. Imamura gave a splendid performance, finishing at the top in all the four races (scratch race 10Km, tempo race 10 Km, elimination, points race 25 km).
Indian riders Mayuri Lute and Sadnya Kotake lost their quarterfinal events of Women Senior and Junior Sprints respectively. Mayuri lost to Yuka Kobayashi of Japan while Sadnya lost to Azwa Nabila of Malaysia.
"Kobayashi was a tough opponent with good technique, I have to work hard on my technique & power for the upcoming Commonwealth Games,'' said Mayuri.
Sampath Pasamel of India finished 6th in the Junior Men 1km Time Trial event, he pedalled the cycle with a speed of 52.324 km/h and clocked 1:08.801s. Kazakhstan's Kirill Kurdidi clocked 1:02.840 to claim Gold while Guenwoo KIM of Korea and Minato Nakaishi of Japan clinched Silver & Bronze medals in the event.
In the Para Men B Sprint event Kazuhei Kimura of Japan won Gold while Jakkit Punthong of Thailand claimed Silver. In the Women B Para Sprint event, Rungarun Ratsamee of Thailand finished the race in 13.398s and claimed Gold.
Therefore, the day wrapped up with an exciting aura gripping the championship with 5 finals on day 3, but it also witnessed a major crash that left the Indian rider involved with a minor injury. The riders were gearing up for the Men Elite 10km tempo race (the second event of the Omnium event), when all of a sudden, the riders from Malaysia (Zulhelmi Zainal) and India (Viswajit Singh) collided with each other. Due to a minor injury to Viswajit, left the event while Zulhelmi Zainal stood up again & finished the race. Zulhelmi also finished all the 4 events of Omnium and placed 8th in overall.
