GUANGZHOU: India opened a new page in its Asian Games history with Ashish Kumar clinching the first-ever medal in gymnastics while Virdhawal Khade broke the swimming medal drought after 24 years as the contingent added four bronze to its kitty in the fourth day of competitions here today.

Ashish Kumar made the country's first foray into the gymnastics medals podium with a bronze in the men's floor event but disappointing performances in other disciplines resulted in India slipping to the ninth position in the medals table.

The 19-year-old Khade also scripted history as he became the first Indian swimmer in 24 years to clinch an Asian Games medal by notching up a bronze in the men's 50 m butterfly event. Harika Dronavalli also clinched a bronze in the women's individual chess.

Bimoljit Singh won a bronze in the 60 kg category of the wushu event while Sandhya Rani Devi has assured herself of at least a silver medal by reaching the final in the women's event.

With the addition of four bronze medals to the kitty, India's medals tally rose to one gold, four silver and seven bronze. India had finished tenth on the medal's tally in the Doha Asian Games in 2006 with ten gold, 17 silver and 26 bronze medals.

But the failure to win any gold medal meant that India could not maintain their seventh position on the medal rostrum, going down by two places.

The Chinese juggernaut continued to roll on as the hosts maintained their position atop the medals table with a whopping tally of 77-28-28 while South Korea (22-17-27) and Japan (15-34-29) were in the second and third position respectively.

Pugilist Suranjoy Singh also provided some spark to punch his way into pre-quarter finals while the shooters came a cropper for the second successive day.

Suranjoy gave a resounding start to the team's boxing campaign by entering the fly weight (52kg) pre-quarters with a thumping win over Thailand's Chatchai Butdee but the script turned out to be quite different at the other venues where the shooters, shuttlers, lifters, men's football team and the women's hockey team came up with dismal performances.

Indian shooters drew a blank for the second successive day after they failed to qualify for the final round of the women's 25m pistol individual event and finished a lowly seventh in the team competition.

The paddlers endured another disappointing day with only the men's doubles pair of Achanta Sharath Kamal and Subhajit Saha progressing to the pre-quarterfinals.

Among those who were pushed out of the medal bracket in the floor apparatus were China's Feng Zhe who finished with 14.900 points, Hishashi Mizutori of Japan (14.825), Yoo Won Chul (Korea, 14.275), who got a penalty of 0.3, Uzbek Masharipov Otabek (14.000) and Ryotaka Deguchi (Japan, 13.425).

Gold medal winner Zhong Chenglong is the world horizontal bar champion while the man who tied for the No 1 spot, Korean Kim Soo Myun, was a member of his country's team that won a bronze in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and his pet event is floor.

The India men's football team and the women's hockey teams suffered humiliating 0-6 and 0-3 losses, both to Japan, with the former being knocked out of the tournament.

Veteran Dharminder Singh Lilly lost 8-40 to Joji Kai of Japan in the men's carom 3 singles quarterfinals while compatriot Alok Kumar went down 4-9 to another Japanese Hisataka Kamihasha in a preliminary match of the men's 9-ball pool singles.

India's judo campaign also ended.

Khade, who narrowly missed the bronze in the 50 metre freestyle event Monday, clocked 24.31 seconds for the third-place finish.

Jiawei Zhou (23.66 secs) won the gold while the silver went to Japan's Masayuki Kishida (24.13 secs).

Commonwealth Games gold medallists Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa moved into the pre-quarterfinals of the badminton women's doubles, going past Thailand's Savitree Amitrapai and P. Munkitchokecharoen.

Gutta and Ponnappa won the first game 21-13, before the Thai pair retired.

The Indians face a tough opponent in second-seeded Chinese pair of Tian Qin and Zhao Yunlei later in the day.

Another Indian pair of Aparna Balan and Prajakta Sawant lost to Malaysians NG Marylen Poauleng and Khe Wei Woon 17-21, 7-21.

Sharath Kamal and Subhajit Saha entered the pre-quarters of the men's doubles table tennis with a comfortable 11-7, 11-4, 11-7 victory over H. Albahrani and M. Alenezy of Kuwait.

Sharath and Saha, who won the doubles gold in the Delhi Commonwealth Games, next face tough opponents in South Koreans Jungwoo Lee and Sang Eun Ho in the round of 16 Thursday.

However, it was the end of the road for Sharath in the mixed doubles -- he was partnering Shamini Kumaresan and lost in the pre-quarterfinals. The duo went down 12-10, 4-11, 11-8, 2-11, 6-11 to the Japanese pair of Seiya Kishikawa and Ai Fukuhara.

The other Indian men's doubles pair of Soumyadeep Roy and Anthony Amalraj failed to get past Cheung Yuk and Li Ching of Hong Kong and lost 5-11, 5-11, 7-11.

The men's singles and women's doubles first round matches will be played Wednesday.

The Indian women went down 0-3 to Japan in their second Group A hockey match.

Japan scored through captain Miyuki Nakagawa (10th minute), Chiba Kaori (31) and Arai Mazuki (70).

India had beaten Malaysia 4-0 in the first match.

The loss pushed India to fourth place in the seven-team competition, with three points in two matches.

South Korea and Japan have won all their three matches and occupy first and second place. China are third with two wins from two matches.

India, who won a bronze in the previous Asian Games at Doha, will take on South Korea Wednesday.

India's judo campaign ended after Tombi Devi and Navjot Chana bowed out in the quarter-finals.

Tombi, who was a medal hope along with judo World Cup bronze medallist Kalpana Devi, failed to score a point against Jung Yeon Chung and lost 0/110 in the women's 48kg category. The contest lasted two minutes at the Huagong Gymnasium.

Navjot also lost his men's 60 kg quarter-final 0/120 to Rishod Sobirov of Uzbekistan in little less than three minutes.