2018 ASIAN GAMES: Pakistan finish with bronze in squash

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan earned a bronze medal in the men’s team squash event of the 2018 Asian Games after losing 0-2 to Malaysia in the semi-finals in Jakarta on Friday.

Before Friday, Pakistan had already won bronze medals in kabaddi, karate and athletics.

Israr Ahmad gave a good account of himself before losing to Ng Eian Yow 11-7, 8-11, 14-16, 6-11. Tayyab Aslam was beaten by Nafiizwan Adnan 8-11, 6-11, 6-11.

In the rugby sevens tournament, Pakistan were thrashed 53-0 by China in a Group A preliminary round match before returning to the GBK field to beat hosts Indonesia 21-5 in 9-12 ranking round game.

Raja Qasim Abbas Rathore finished ninth in the RS:X

Men category of the sailing competitions at the National Sailing Centre.

Khalidullah Rehman Hussain achieved the same position in the 470 Men classh while Muhammad Awais was 15th in the Open Laser 4.7 category.

There was no good news from the judo arena as well.

Shah Hussain Shah lost to Viktor Demyanenko of Kazakhstan in their round of 16 fight in the men’s -100kg category while Qaiser Khan met the same fate in the -90kg round of 32 bout against Chaoen Shen of Chinese Taipei. In baseball’s team consolation round, Hong Kong beat Pakistan 10-2.

AFP adds: Hong Kong’s Sarah Lee Wai-sze said she overcame a jittery night to defend her sprint crown at the Asian Games on Friday, ending her track cycling campaign with two gold medals.

Lee, who set a tournament-record 10.583 seconds in Thursday’s qualifying round, beat South Korea’s Lee Hye-jin in two straight races at the Jakarta velodrome.

The 31-year-old former Olympic keirin bronze medallist said she had been nervous yet confident of a strong showing going into the continental games final.

“I was really very nervous. I did good on that (track) but you really don’t know what will happen. Last night I couldn’t sleep very well,” Lee told reporters.

“But I was more confident and stronger than the others and that’s why I performed well. I went step by step to the gold medal.

Lee, who was also part of Hong Kong’s silver-winning sprint team in Jakarta, said she would target gold at the 2020 Olympics.

South Korea’s Cho Sun-young got bronze on Friday after edging out China’s Zhong Tianshi — who won team sprint gold at the 2016 Olympics — in a determined 2-1 finish.

In the men’s keirin, it was disappointment for Malaysia’s Azizulhasni Awang who settled for bronze a day after shaving off his moustache to celebrate a sprint gold.

Angsuthasawit Jai raced to gold in the keirin final with Japan’s Nitta Yudai taking silver.

“I just went into it as strong as I could and I came out lucky,” Jai, who earlier represented Australia, told AFP.

Jai, 23, competed in track cycling for Australia at junior and national levels, but in September 2017 chose to begin representing Thailand.

Azizulhasni said he had been on good form but still failed to win more than a bronze.

“That’s the beauty of keirin,” he said. “This is one of my best performances as well. Let’s now focus on the Tokyo Olympics,” he added.

Hong Kong won the men’s madison gold after their riders pushed South Korea into second position in the final few laps of the relay event. Japan took bronze.

The Hong Kong duo of Cheung King-lok and Leung Chun-wing lived up to their top billing as they accumulated 59 points at the end of lap 16, five ahead of Korea.

The relay final also witnessed a crash between riders from Iran and Thailand but there were no serious injuries.

South Korea won gold in the women’s madison with Hong Kong taking silver and China settling for bronze.