India finished seventh in the medal count at the Hangzhou Asian Games with five medals each from rowing and shooting

However, a gold escaped them on the first day on which medals were in the offing. India began their medal chase at the Hangzhou Asian Games with its rowers and women shooters bringing home five medals on Sunday.

The shooters won a silver in the women’s 10m air rifle team competition and a bronze in the 10m air rifle individual competition, with Ramita Thapar taking third place. The rowers won two silver and one bronze.

The Indian men’s football team drew 1-1 with Myanmar to go to the Round of 16, while the boxers got off to a strong start thanks to two-time World Champion Nikhat Zareen’s convincing victory against the opponent she beat in the World final in March of this year.

The women’s 4x100m freestyle team and Srihari Nataraj made it to their respective finals, but neither team was able to win a medal. Srihari finished sixth in the men’s 100m backstroke in 54.48 seconds, and the quartet of Dhinidhi Desinghu, Maana Patel, Janhvi Choudhary, and Shivanghi Sarma finished seventh in the final with a time of 3:54.66.

The day, however, belonged to the women’s rifle shooters and rowers, whose efforts allowed India to earn five medals—three silver and two bronze—and move up to seventh position in the medal standings.

Olympic rowers Arvind Singh and Arjun Lal Jat placed second in the Men’s Lightweight Double Sculls final at the Fuyang Water Sports Center, earning the rowers the first medal—a silver. The seasoned team, which advanced to the Olympic Games semifinals in Tokyo, finished the Lightweight Men’s Double Sculls Final in 6 minutes, 20.18 seconds, to win silver behind Junje Fan and Man Sun of China, who finished the course in 6:23.16. Shakhzod Nurmatov and Sobirjon Safaroumov of Uzbekistan took home the bronze medal in 6:32.47.

On Sunday, the men’s coxed eight Indian team of Jaswinder Singh, Bheem Singh, Punit Kumar, Ashish, Naresh Kalwaniya, Neeraj, Neetish Kumar, Charanjeet Singh, and Dhananjay Pande won the silver medal while Babu Lal Yadav and Lekh Ram won the bronze medal in the men’s pair events, giving the country three medals overall in rowing.

India came in second place overall in the Men’s Coxed Eight with a time of 5:43.01, ahead of Indonesia in third place (5:45.51), and behind China (5:40.17).

India’s Babu Lal Yadav and Lekh Ram came in third place in the Men’s Pair with a time of 6:50.14. In 6:44.20, Hong Kong China won the gold medal, while Uzbekistan finished in 6:48.41. The Uzbekistan duo was closely pursued by the Indians, but they ultimately were unable to bridge the gap.

The shooters also participated, and Ramita Thapar, a teenage athlete, excelled, anchoring the Women’s 10m Air Rifle team to a silver medal and later winning a bronze medal in the solo competition.

Ramita came in second place behind China, who had a total of 1896.6, together with her colleagues Mehuli Ghosh and Ashi Chouksey. Mongolia won the bronze with a score of 1880.0. With a score of 1896.6, China swept to the gold medal.

Halfway through the individual competition’s final round, Ramita was grouped with other competitors in second position.

She then somewhat lost her bearings with a score of 9.9 on the sixteenth turn, made up for it with six shots of 10 or higher, but had to settle for the bronze medal in front of two Chinese shooters.

The second Indian to make it to the solo final, the skilled Mehuli Ghosh, came in fourth.

In spite of being held to a 1-1 draw by Myanmar in a preliminary round encounter, the Indian men’s football team created history by making it to the Round of 16 for the first time since 2010.

India led 1-0 at halftime thanks to talisman Sunil Chhetri, one of the sport’s most productive goal scorers right now. Chhetri’s goal came in the 23rd minute. However, they failed to take use of the advantage and enabled Kyaw Yan of Myanmar to score in the 74th minute to tie the game.

India, however, came in second place in the group and received a straight entry into the Round of 16.

No such luck for the men’s volleyball team, who were soundly defeated 2-0 in straight sets by strong Japan in a quarterfinal match. They will now compete for fifth or sixth place in a match against bitter rivals Pakistan.