The last day of the Asian Track Cycling Championship 2022 ended with India’s Ronaldo Singh producing a dynamic performance by winning a historic silver medal in the sprint event of the senior category.
This time India got a golden opportunity of hosting Asian Track Cycling Championship 2022. The championship was organized in the capital New Delhi itself. Being host India made a bright start to their campaign at the Asian Track Cycling Championships by bagging 10 medals, including a gold, on the opening day of competitions here on 18th June, Saturday.
The opening day of the 41st Senior, 28th Junior Asian Track edition and 10th Para Track Cycling Championships witnessed 12 finals out of which four were for Para Championships. The Indians claimed one silver and six bronze medals in the senior and junior events, while one gold, one silver and one bronze were won in Para events.
Ronaldo became the show stopper and hogged the limelight in the men’s elite sprint. This was his third medal in this championship. Earlier, he had won bronze medals in 1km Time Trial as well as Team Sprint events. On Wednesday, he gave a tough fight to Japan’s very experienced rider Kento Yamasaki but finished with a silver. Yamasaki defeated Ronaldo in back-to-back two races to finish at the top of the podium and clinch the gold. Kazakhstan’s Andrey Chugay won the bronze in this championship. In the morning, Ronaldo defeated Andrey Chugay of Kazakhstan in the semifinal. Ronaldo lost the first race but bounced back to win the next two races to get into the finals.
The final day witnessed ebullient performances on the Velodrome with finals of 10 events taking place in the same day. However, there were a handful of crashes too but the pain was all erased by the enthusiasm of the cyclists.
Japan topped the medal tally this time with 18 Gold, 7 Silver and 2 Bronze medals in the 41st Senior & 28th Junior Asian Track & 10th Para edition of Track Cycling Championships held at IGI Sports Complex in New Delhi. In the world-class field, the Indian Cycling team finished their campaign by winning 23 medals overall including 2 Gold, 6 Silver and 15 Bronze in the Championships which is the best ever performance of any Indian Cycling contingent ever. Korea finished second in the tournament with 12 Gold, 14 Silver and 3 Bronze medals while Kazakhstan claimed third place with 4 Gold, 4 Silver and 3 Bronze medals.
The General secretary of the Cycling Federation of India said that we started as underdogs and achieved much more than expected this time. The athletes gave performances that are extremely commendable.
After winning the Silver medal on his birthday, Ronaldo said, “Gold was in my mind but I’m also happy with the first-ever Silver, this is the best ever performance of my career and in every tournament, I improved my technique, this is most important and with the blessings of my family, I achieved it.”
