Takhar creates history, wins gold in rowing

GUANGZHOU: Bajrang Lal Takhar today created history by becoming the first ever Indian rower to win a gold medal in the Asian Games by winning the men's singles sculls competition here today.

Starting in lane 3, the Indian Army officer, led the 2000m race right from the start and went on to take gold with a timing of 7:04.78.

Chinese Taipei's Wang Ming Hui (7:07.33) took the silver while Iraq's Haeider Hamarasheid (7:10.10) won the bronze with a third place finish.

Takhar had also become the first Indian to win a silver medal at the Doha Asian Games in 2006. He had also won the gold medal at the Asian Championships in Korea last year.

With Takhar's feat, India's wait to get its second gold medal at this edition of the Asian Games also ended.

Cueist Pankaj Advani had won the first gold early in the competition.

Yesterday also the rowers had won two silver medals for India.

Anil Kumar, Saji Thomas, Ranjit Singh and Jenil Krishnan had combined to win the silver in the men's rowing four team while the quartet of Lokesh Kumar, Manjeet Singh, Rajesh Kumar Yadav and Satish Joshi won silver in men's lightweight four event final.