Swaran Singh wins gold at Asian rowing championship

New Delhi, Sep 30: Olympian Swaran Singh Virk led the Indian rowers' impressive showing by clinching a gold medal at the 15th Asian Senior Rowing Championship at Luan, China on Sunday.

Besides Virk's gold, India won two silver and as many bronze medals in the championship.

In the finals that concluded this morning, Virk got the better of rowers from Iran and China in 7:31.88 minutes to bag the yellow metal.

The team of Anil Kumar, Robin P Ulahannan, Olympian Bajrang Lal Thakar, Ranjit Singh, Kapil Sharma, Mohammed Azad, Maninder Singh and Davinder Singh took 6:12.47 minutes to win the silver medal in Men's Eights event.

While Kapil Sharma, Mohammed Azad, Maninder Singh and Davinder Singh bagged the Men's Fours silver in 6:03.50 minutes.

India won the bronze in Lightweight Men's Double Sculls with Sonu Laxmi Narian and Shokindar Tomar winning it in 6:57.13 minutes.

Monalisha, Dittymol Varghese, Chaoba Devim and Amusana Devi clinched a bronze in Lightweight Women's Quadruple Sculls with a timing of 7:03.33 minutes.

In Men's Quadruple Sculls, Rakesh Raliya, Deepak Rana, Dushyant and Olympian Manjeet Singh finished fourth with a timing of 6:01.03 minutes.

Virk finished at the 16th place after finishing fourth in a minor placings race in the men's single sculls event at the London Olympics.

Virk had booked his berth for the 2012 London Games by winning the major qualifying event at the FISA Olympic Continental Qualification Regatta for Asia in Chung Ju, Korea.