India's poor show in the pool continued as its swimmers could lay their hands on only two bronze medals in the aquatic events of the inaugural Afro-Asian Games in Hyderabad on Monday.
The medals were won by the relay teams on the third day of competition, which saw one-legged South African Natalie Dutoit hogging limelight with her silver medal-winning effort in the 800 metres freestyle.
Natalie, whose leg was amputated from the knee following an accident in 2000, got a standing ovation when she finished the 800 metres freestyle in 9 min 17.92 seconds. The event was dominated by Africans, with Shrone Austine of Seychelles claiming the gold with a timing of 9:16.46s and South Africa's Velia Janse Van R taking the bronze in 9:19.74s.
India's bronze medals came in the two 4x100m freestyle relays.
The quartet of Shikha Tondon, Lisa Mahanta, Remya V and Ambica Iyenger finished in 4:16.53s, well behind gold medal winners Korea [Cho A Ra, Park Kyung Hwa, Shin Bo Mi Kim Mi Ryung], who clocked 4:00.07s, and South Africa [Christine Zwiegers, Jackie Wellman, Ellen Hight], who timed 4:04.02s.
The men's bronze medal-winning team of Senthil Kumar, Gairik Bardhan, Rajeev K and Benoy Sebastian were quite slow but still got the medal as there were only three teams in the fray.
They completed the race in 4:7.89s, almost 20 seconds slower than the Japanese swimmers, who claimed the gold medal. South Africa won the silver.
Barring the two bronze medals, it was a disappointing day for the Indians in the pool with not even a single swimmer winning a medal in the individual events.
Ambica Iyenger was the first failure for the home side today as she finished sixth in a seven-woman field, clocking a poor 9:55.59s.
In other events, V Sivaranjani, despite getting a very fine start, failed to win a medal while Mandar Divse and Mir Akbar Ali had a very ordinary outing.
Algeria's Mahrez Mebarekwas won the men's 400m freestyle while the 200m individual medley gold went to Ouying Kunpeng of China.
Korea's Lee Sun A won the women's 200m individual medley gold.
The day was also disappointing for Pakistani swimmers who failed to win even a single medal.
Kiran Khan was last in the women's 200m individual medley while the Pakistani women's freestyle relay team took the last position.
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