Triple jumper Arpinder Singh won India’s 10th gold medal of the 2018 Asian Games when he leaped to a distance of 16.77m on his third attempt in Jakarta on Wednesday.
India last won the gold medal in this event back in 1970 when Mohinder Singh clinched his second Asian Games yellow metal 48 year ago.
Singh went into Wednesday’s event as a clear favourite and lived up to the expectations as he took the top spot with his second jump of 16.58m and then improved on it on the next jump to ensure that no one had a chance to catch up with him.
The other Indian in fray, AV Rakesh Babu, raised hope of having two Indians on the podium when he cleared a distance of 16.40m in the second attempt and looked good to improve on that distance. But he struggled thereafter and looked like suffering from a knee injury, skipping his fifth attempt to try and go all out for one last jump.
Uzbekistan’s Ruslan Kurbanov took the silver medal with a personal best of 16.62m while China’s Shuo Cao bagged the bronze with a final jump of 16.56 to pip Japan’s Kohei Yamashita.