Guangzhou:
Bajrang Lal Takhar stole the limelight with a historic gold in men's singles scull as Indian rowers notched up three more medals while the shooters chipped in with a bronze on the seventh day of competitions in the 16th Asian Games on Friday.
Apart from Bajrang Lal's gold, which is first for an Indian rower at the Games, the Indian men's eight team grabbed silver and the women claimed the pair bronze to make it a very fruitful day at the International Rowing Centre here.
The shooters, who have been a pale shadow of themselves at the Aoti shooting range, accounted for a bronze with Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Mansher Singh and Zoravar Singh Sandhu finishing third in the men's team trap event.
With the addition of four medals in the morning session, India's medal tally climbed to two gold, eight silver and ten bronze. India had finished tenth on the medals table in the last Asian Games in Doha with a tally of 10-17-26.
The 29-year-old Bajrang Lal, an army man, gave India the second gold in the ongoing Games after Pankaj Advani had clinched the yellow metal in billiards on the second day of competitions.
Takhar led the 2000m race from start to finish and rowed his way to the gold with a few lengths of boats to spare in 7 minutes and 4.78 seconds.
The gold, that followed the two silver medals won in the men's light weight 4s and 4s event yesterday, took the medal haul from rowing to five.
Rajasthan-born Bajrang Lal, who won Asian championship gold last year in Korea and was the pre-event favourite, was followed across the finish line by Chinese Taipei's Wang Ming Hui (7:07.33), who took the silver, and Iraq's Haeider Hamarasheid (7:10.10), who won the bronze.
"I won silver in the 2006 Asian Games. I had prepared for four years to fight for the gold medal today. I knew I would make it," Takhar said.
Later the women's duo of Pratima Puhana and Pramila Minz, both in their teens, grabbed the pairs bronze in 7 minutes and 47.50 seconds, well behind gold medal winners China, who crossed the finish line far ahead in 7:22.06.
The rowing event came to an end with the Indian men's eight team clinching the silver, by clocking 5:49.50, way behind hosts China who timed 5:37.44, but well ahead of bronze medal winners Uzbekistan (5:55.96).
The Indians -- Lokesh Kumar, Satish Joshi, Saji Thomas, Jenil Krishnan, Anil Kumar, Rajesh Kumar Yadav, Manjeet Singh and Girraj Singh -- finished more than a boat and half length ahead of the third-placed team.
The trio of Manavjit, Mansher and Zoravar combined for a score of 341 to finish third and brought sixth medal from the sport at this edition of the Games.
Before this bronze, the shooters had won three silvers and two bronze medals.
However, the women's trap team of Shagun Chowdhary, Seema Tomar and Shreyasi Singh failed to finish on the podium and finished fourth with a score of 181, a point behind bronze-medallists Korea.
India's women's hockey team scored their second win when they thrashed Thailand 13-0. Skipper Surinder Kaur scored four goals while Rani found the net thrice in India's win.
India had earlier lost to Japan (3-0) and Korea (1-0) while they had beaten Malaysia (4-0). They now have six points and stand fourth in the group A standings.
More good news came for the Indian contingent from Aaoti Tennis centre where, Sania Mirza, Somdev Devvarman and Karan Rastogi won their respective singles matches.
Unseeded Sania toppled sixth seed Chinese Shuai Zhang 6-2 6-2 to seal a quarter-final berth in the women's singles second round.
Second seed Somdev and seventh seed Karan demolished Jabor Mohammed Al Mutawa of Qatar and Myalikkuli Mamedkuliyev of Turkmenistan respectively with an identical 6-0 6-0 scoreline to move into the men's singles pre-quarterfinals.
However, disappointment was in store in Taekwondo as all the three Indian fighters in the reckoning today -- Surendra Bhandari, Chandan Lakra and Srishit Singh -- crashed out of their respective events.
Bhandari was first to suffer defeat when he lost his opening round 7-8 in the men's 63kg category to Kazakhstan's Darkhan Kassymkulov.
Lakra then raised hopes of winning a medal in men's 68 kg category by winning his first round bout but fizzled out in the quarter-finals.
Lakra beat Malaysia's Omar Sidek Mohd Afifudin 6-2 but then lost to Mongolia's Naranchimeg Erdenebaatar 7-19 in the last-eight stage.
A lot was expected from Srishti Singh in the women's Under 62kg category as a win in quarter-finals would have assured her a bronze but she lost 5-7 to Jordan's Shaden Thweib.