It was a bad day at the office for Indian cyclists as they failed to progress into the finals of men’s 4000m Team Pursuit, women’s Team Sprint, and men’s Team Sprint events respectively at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham on Friday.
The men’s 4000m Team Pursuit Indian team comprising of cyclists Vishwajeet Singh, Naman Kapil, Venkappa Kengalagutti, Anantha Narayan SS, and Dinesh Kumar were far from impressive as they clocked 4:12.865s to finish last in the qualifying.
New Zealand with an impressive timing of 3:49.821s finished first while hosts England (3:50.796s) emerged close behind to enter the final. Australia (3:51.274s) and Wales (3:54.613s), on the other hand, emerged third and fourth and will now race for the bronze medal.
Meanwhile, there was no change in fortunes for the Indian team as cyclists Mayuri Lute, Triyasha Paul, and Sushikala Agashe managed just a seventh place finish out of a total eight teams in the qualifying round of women’s Team Sprint event.
The Indian trio took 51.433s to complete their race as New Zealand (47.841s) and Canada (47.956s) finished above the rest to qualify for the gold medal encounter. Wales (48.095s) and Australia (48.355s) settled for the third and fourth spots respectively.
India’s final hope of a last-four entry also diminished as the team of Y Rojit Singh, Ronaldo Laitonjam, David Bekham, and Esow Alben crashed out of the qualifiers, finishing second last in the men’s Team Sprint event.
The Indian cyclists recorded 44.702s but finished a lowly sixth out of seven teams. Australia (42.222s) and England (43.296s) once again showed their dominance in cycling to walk away with the first and second place in the qualifying event. New Zealand (43.974s) and Canada (44.071) grabbed the next two places respectively.