India finishes with 3 gold, 3 silver and 5 bronze in Track Asia Cup

Deborah Herold (in blue)

Indian Cycling team finished their campaign by winning 11 medals including 3 Gold, 3 Silver and 5 Bronze medals in the Track Asia Cup held at IGI Sports Complex here and ranked third in Overall medal tally. Korea finished at the top with 6 Gold, 3 Silver and 3 Bronze while Uzbekistan secured second place with 3 Gold and 4 Silver medals.

On the final day, India won 2 Gold and 3 Bronze medals.

India’s young cycling sensation Deborah Herold made a fine start on the final day of the Track Asia Cup by winning the Gold medal in the Women Elite Sprint clocking 13.614 seconds to beat Korea’s Cho Sun Young (13.704).

Deborah also missed one medal opportunity as she fell down in her favourite Keiren event. On the final lap, she couldn’t maintain her balance and fell down on the track and after coming in contact of Deborah, Thailand’s Pannaray Rasee also lost her balance and collided. Deborah eventually settled for 1 Gold and 2 silver medals (including one from team event) in Track Asia Cup.

Deborah said “I am bit upset that I missed medal in one of my favourite event Keirin-WE as I fell down, I could have won one more Gold for India and I was leading but unfortunately I fell down and couldn’t win the medal for India. Anyways you improve with every tournament and I am following it. The overall performance of our teams is better. This event is a good preparation for us looking ahead two major events World Cup in Hongkong followed by Asian Championship in Japan early next year. Before this we will also have our training camp in Switzerland from first week of December”.

In the Junior Women Sprint finals, India’s Nayana Rajesh bagged gold medal in 13.510 seconds while Anu Chutia clinched bronze in 13.822 seconds. The silver went to Fatemeh Hadavand of Iran in 13.623 seconds. Nayana led from the start and won in a very fine manner. She was very calm during the event and pedaled the cycle like she is swimming in the pool.

Nayana said after the event that her coach Mr. R.K. Sharma told us to be calm and soft during the event and he also gave some technical tips which we followed well and due to this I won the gold and Anu won the Bronze.

In the Men Junior section Emerson bagged bronze medal in the Sprint finals with a timing of 12.347 seconds. The Gold of this event gone to Thanawat Uraikit of Thailand and Saiid Suwaidan of UAE won the Silver.

The men’s junior team, consisting of Ranjith Singh, Sahil Kumar, Om Thalor Prakash and Sanju Udayan Abhjith won bronze in the Team pursuit 4 km event, waving off tough competition with a timing of 4:46.643s. Gold of this event won by Uzbekistan (4:39.630s) and Silver bagged by UAE with a timing of 4:42.679s.

The main attraction of today was the point race of 30Km where 16 riders took part together and they have to complete the 120 rounds of the track. However, Indian couldn’t win the medal in this race and Arvind Panwar could secure 11th place but the stamina and pace maintained by Panwar was amazing and we can hope the medals in future with this event. Nikita Panassenko of Track Team Astana won the Gold with 105 points while Timur Gumerov collected 73 points and secured 2nd place. The third place went to Wan Yau Vincent of Hongkong with a total of 52 points.

World Cycling Satellite Centre inaugurated today in Delhi

The long effort put in by the Cycling Federation of India to get World Cycling facilities in our country has been given green signal today when the “Satellite Centre” was inaugurated at the IGI Cycling Velodrome in New Delhi by Mr. Injeti Srinivas, Director General, Sports Authority of India.

It was just in April 2015 when India started SAI National Cycling Academy (SAINCA) in collaboration with Sports Authority of India & Cycling Federation of India. Most of the riders of 14-16 Age groups are in SAINCA. Now this has been accredited by World Cycling Centre as its ‘Satellite Centre’. This centre becomes the third UCI’s satellite centre in the world, whereby 181 Countries are affiliated to UCI. Only Japan and Korea has the satellite centre.

With the introduction of this new satellite centre, now riders from various countries of Asia can avail the World Class facilities for training available at IGI Cycling Velodrome in New Delhi. This will create a good opportunity to train under the guidance of World Class coaches who will be appointed by UCI World Cycling Centre. 80 riders will be given full residential facility including their boarding and equipment’s which will be provided by Sports Authority of India.

Mr. Injeti Srinivas, Director General, Sports Authority of India said, “The standard of Cycling in India is slightly raising and credit goes to Cycling Federation of India who is planning sincerely and training hard to the riders. This centre will help the development of cycling sport and form a considerable bench strength for the Indian Cycling team in furtherance to their quest for participation and winning at Asian, World and Olympic Games. He also said that on behalf of Sports Authority of India, I can assure you to provide all the support from SAI to our cyclists and federation as well.”

Mr. Onkar Singh, Secretary General Cycling Federation of India said on this occasion, “We are working day and night to raise the standard of Indian Riders at the World level. The Satellite Centre will help to increase the level of competition amongst our athletes and also our Indian riders will get the maximum exposure by training with foreign riders under the guidance of World class coaches”.

“The world class facilities will help them to learn the new techniques and improve their timings. I am confident that with the inauguration of this Satellite Centre, we will be able to improve our rankings and achieve more medals in the major international events soon. Once we will start getting results at international level, I am sure it will help us in the further development and promotion of sport in the country” said Mr.Onkar Singh.