Asiad: Indian swimmer Virdhawal Khade wins Bronze

Guangzhou:

Virdhawal Khade scripted history on Tuesday as he became the first Indian swimmer in 24 years to clinch an Asian Games medal by notching up a bronze in the 50m butterfly event here on Tuesday.

Khade, who topped his heat by clocking 24.56sec, finished third in the finals with a timing of 24.31sec.

Khazan Singh was the last Indian swimmer to win a medal at the Asian Games when he clinched the 100m freestyle silver in the 1986 Seoul edition.

Congratulate Virdhawal Khade

"I am very happy to have won a medal for India after 24 years. I wanted to win after missing the bronze yesterday. It would have been better had it been a silver or a gold," Khade, who finished fourth in the 50m freestyle finals just 0.03 seconds behind the bronze-medallist, said.

"My start was bad but my swimming is better than all these guys. That is how I could catch them, I have to work on my start. It is not easy in 50m to recover after a bad start," he added.

The 19-year-old's timing was, however, not even his personal best which is 24.25sec which he managed at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune in 2008.

China's Jiawei Zhou clinched the gold by clocking 23.66sec, while Japan's Masayuki Kishida settled for silver 24.13sec.

Earlier, also in 50m butterfly, Anshul Kothari came out on top in his heat with a timing 26.08sec but it was just not enough to be among the final eight.

The flop-show continued in other events with Rehan Poncha and M Badrinath finishing sixth and seventh respectively in the men's 100m backstroke event.

While Poncha clocked 59.38sec, Badrinath managed a timing of 59.62sec.

In the men's 4x100m freestyle relay, the Indian team of Aaron Agnel Dsouza, Arjun Jayaprakash, Anshul Kothari and Khade finished fourth in the heats with a timing of 3:29.71secs.

The effort could only fetch them a place in the back-up list for the finals.

In men's 400m freestyle, Divase Mandar ended seventh in his heats after clocking 4:08.22sec.