Indian rowing challenge sinks without a trace

Sydney: India's challenge in the Olympic rowing competition sank without a trace as the country's first-ever rowing pair in the Games, Kasam Khan and Inderpal Singh, finished fifth and last in their heat in the men's coxless pairs category at the Regatta Centre here on Sunday.

The Indians, who received training for more than four months in the United States, timed 7:09.94. The French pair of Michel Andreiux and Jean Christophe Rolland won the race in 6:44.80.

First three in each of the three heats qualified for the next stage, the semi-finals, while the remaining will take part in the repachage. So technically, the Indians will get more chance, but it is clear that they have a long way to go before catching up with the rest of the world.

Inderpal and Kasam, both silver medallists at the Asian championships in Osaka earlier this year, were selected from the three Indian pairs after a four-month long training-cum-competition stint in the United States.

They were trained under American coach Ted Bonanno. According to him, the Indian team is getting ready for the 2002 Asian Games which is the real target for them as the Olympics standards are still very high.

Placed in a heat where the other pairs were from Italy (Lluigi Sorrentino and Pasquale Panzarino), Croatia (Olivier Martinov and Ninoslav Saraga) and Argentines (Damian Ordas and Diego Aguirregomezcorta), the Indian pair trailed for almost the whole race.

In the 2000 metre long race, the French were ahead for the first half and just before the 1,500m mark the Italians overtook them.

But the tenacious French again overtook them in the closing stages to pull away a clear three and a half seconds ahead. The French clocked 6:44.80 while the Italians timed 6:48.26.

The top timings in the others heats were 6:42.62 by the Yugoslavs in second heat and 6:42.45, the best of the day, by a British pair.

UNI