Asian Games 2023: Indian Rowers Start Well As Men's Teams And Women's Team Reach Repechage

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Hangzhou, September 20: The Indian rowers opened their Asian Games 2023 campaign on a positive note as two men's doubles sculls teams and one women's doubles sculls team reached the repechage round following the heats on Wednesday (September 20) in Hangzhou.

The Lightweight Men's Double Sculls duo of Arjun Lal Jat & Arvind Singh, who are TOPS Scheme athletes, showed their grit with a second-place finish in their heats, clocking a time of 6:27.45 to reach the repechage round.

Arjun and Arvind will compete in repechage 1 alongside teams from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Philippines. The top two will progress to the Final A, while the 3rd placed team will enter Final B.

Similarly, their compatriots Satnam Singh & Parminder Singh, who competed in men's doubles sculls event, also finished 2nd in their heat with a timing of 6:27.01 to reach the repechage round. The Indian duo will be in Repechage 1 alongside Kuwait, Sri Lanka, Iraq and Hong Kong.

Both the lightweight men's doubles sculls team and the men's doubles sculls team will compete for Final A berths in their respective repechage rounds, which takes place on Thursday (September 21) at the Fuyang Water Sports Centre in Hangzhou, China.

Also, in the men's pair preliminary round, Babu Lal Yadav and Lekh Ram finished third behind pairs from Uzbekistan and Hong Kong with a timing of 6:42.59. The men's eight team finished 2nd in the preliminary round with the timing of 5:38.65. Both the pair and eight teams will next compete in Final A.

Meanwhile, the women's team of Kiran & Anshika Bharti, who competed in Lightweight Women's Double Sculls event, also secured 4th spot in Heat 2, clocking a time of 7:27.57 to reach the Repechage round, which also takes place on Thursday (September 21).

India's Kiran and Anshika will now compete alongside Thailand, Japan and Hong Kong pairs in Repechage 2, in which the first and second placed teams will qualify for Final A, while the 3rd placed team will enter Final B.

The women's fours team of Aswathi PB, Mrunamayee Nilesh S, Thangjam Priya Devi and Rukmani finished sixth with a timing of 7:09.07 in the preliminary round. However, they will still progress to the Final A along with the other five teams.