Meanwhile, Yogeshwar Dutt started his London campaign with a gold medal on Saturday in the Asian Wrestling Championship currently underway in Gumi, South Korea, says a report in The Times Of India. He beat wrestlers from Kazakhstan, Japan, China and Iran on the way to gold. “It’s always good to win a medal just ahead of the qualifiers. The medal has given me self-belief and motivation to perform better in the qualifiers in March,” Yogeshwar told TOI from South Korea.
Yogeshwar (60kg) had last won a gold medal in the Asian Championship in 2008 and gave the event a miss after that. The Indian wrestlers had undergone month-long high-altitude training in Colorado Springs, United States last month. “Highaltitude training in US has helped a lot in tackling breathing problems during bouts. The gains of our hard work in the US are reflecting in our performance. I had four bouts in all, of which three bouts went on till three rounds,” he added.
According to The Hindu report, India added two mixed team gold medals to teenage compound archer Chittibomma Jignas's individual gold on the penultimate day of the first Asian Grand Prix archery tournament in Bangkok on Saturday. India won three silvers through Mangal Singh Champia (men's recurve), Chekrovolu Swuro (women's recurve) and Rajat Chauhan (men's compound) and the lone bronze through veteran Jhano Hansdah (women's compound). Jignas downed compatriot Chauhan in the tie-breaker after they tied at 144. Jignas's shot was found to be closer to the centre as both hit the bull's eye in the men's compound final. The mixed recurve team of Jayanta Talukdar and L. Bombayla Devi won gold beating a Japanese pair at 143-142 in the final while the compound mixed team of Chauhan and Hansdah out shot Myanmar archers at 151-148.
According to a TOI report, the four wise men of the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) and two government nominees will sit down at Rudrapur in Uttarakhand on Sunday to finalize the squad for the London Olympics with pistol shooter Heena Sidhu and Athens Olympics silver medallist Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore emerging as strong contenders to win a berth. Also in the running for a berth in the Games are pistol shooter Anisa Sayyed and rifle shooters Joydeep Karmakar and Sushil Ghaley.
“It has been unanimously decided to exchange the third quota we won in men’s rifle 3-position through Imran Hassan Khan as we already have two entries in Sanjeev Rajput and Gagan Narang,” national coach Sunny Thomas said. The coach said that Karmakar and Ghaley comes into the picture to grab the place of rifle prone shooter Hari Om Singh whose performance has dipped after winning the quota in the World Championship in 2010.