Tokyo, Sep 27 (IANS) India concluded their equestrian campaign at the Asian Games 2026 without a medal as none of the seven riders managed to be on the podium as Hriday Chhed and Jai Sud missed out on dressage medals on Sunday.
At Hangzhou 2023, India won a gold in team dressage while Anush Agarwalla struck bronze in individual dressage. So far, India have won 14 medals – four gold, three silver and seven bronze – in the sport on the continental stage.
A fourth-place finish in team dressage was the closest Indian equestrian athletes came to a podium at Aichi-Nagoya. India finished fourth in the dressage team event with a total score of 201.971 points, narrowly missing out on a podium finish.
The 55-year-old Shruti Vora (horse: Magnanimous) – the oldest Indian competing at the ongoing Asian Games – was India’s top performer with 68.059.
Hriday Chheda (with Dono Di Maggio), who was part of the Indian quartet which won a dressage team gold at Hangzhou 2023, scored 67.353. Meanwhile, Jai Sud (horse: Goofy La Perle) scored 66.559.
Gaurav Pundir (horse: Milli) scored 65.794 but it was the team’s drop score as only the best three results counted.
In the individual dressage event, Shruti and Gaurav were eliminated in the second round of the qualifiers for the individual final.
Hriday and Jai qualified for the medal round but finished eighth and ninth, respectively. Hriday scored 72.680 in the final while Jai accumulated 71.490 on Sunday.
In eventing, Anish Limaye (horse: Willy Be Dun) and Tokyo 2020 Olympian Fouaad Mirza (Camouflage 38) were the only two Indians who made it to the final cross-country round in the individual competition.
Limaye would go on to finish 12th overall with a 44.50 penalty points, while Mirza, a silver medal winner in the event at Jakarta 2018, opted to retire from the round.
Another Indian, Arjan Singh Nagra (horse: Cooley Goodwood), was eliminated in the jumping stage.
Eventing consists of three rounds – dressage, jumping and the final cross country.
In the eventing team event, the Indian trio finished eighth with an accumulated total of 2044.50 penalty points.
IANS
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