Indian rowers ride high at Asian junior champs
India topped the medals table at the 14th Asian Junior Championships held on the Shing Mun River in, Shatin, Hong Kong, over the weekend. The team finished with a tally of two gold, one silver and one bronze from the eight events. They were followed by China and Korea with two gold medals each.
The Indian women made a particularly strong showing taking gold in the coxless pair and silver in the quad. China meanwhile dominated the men’s and women’s double sculls.
Host country Hong Kong excelled in front of a large home crowd, winning medals in every event to finish with the largest overall medal tally of one gold, four silvers and three bronze medals.
Water conditions on the salt water Shing Mun River, which had been fine with a light tail wind during the preliminary rounds, became progressively rougher during the Finals due to the influence of a strong northeast monsoon. Races on the last day were rowed under quite challenging conditions, but most of the junior crews coped extremely well. Organisers breathed a sigh of relief in completing all of the events according to schedule, as an hour after the regatta finished the river became unrowable.
One of the most exciting races came in the Final of the men’s single sculls with athletes from Kazakhstan, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea challenging each other. Yevgeniy Vassilyev of Kazakhstan took an early lead, followed by Yushi Naito of Japan. After the halfway point however, Tang Chiu Mang of Hong Kong moved ahead of Naito and began to mount a challenge on the leader. At the same time, Kim Byeong Jin of Korea moved up to challenge the tiring Japanese athlete. In the final stretch, Vassilyev just held off the challenge from Tang finishing in 6:55.07 ahead of Tang’s 6:55.36. Further back Japan’s Naito finished just ahead of Korea to take bronze in 7:04.99.
Races were held over 2000m and events included the men’s single, double, four and eight and the women’s single, double, pair and quad. Fifteen federations entered with over 100 athletes racing.
Speaking at the Asian Rowing Federation Congress, held during the Championships, ARF President Mr. Wei Di (CHN) noted the increasingly high level of performance displayed at the Asian junior level and the growing number of entries as a result of efforts made to promote and develop the sport in the region.
The Congress awarded the 2009 Asian Senior and Junior Championships to the city of Yi Lan in Chinese Taipei. The event is planned for November with Hong Kong hosting the East Asian Games in December.
Mr. Wei Di also informed the Congress that adaptive rowing events will be offered at the first Asian Paralympic Games. These will be held in Guangdong, China immediately following the 2010 Asian Games.
Delegates from the city of Chung-Ju, South Korea informed members of their intention to bid for the 2013 World Rowing Championships.
Copy thanks to Chris Perry, FISA development consultant for Asia.
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