In the semifinal, he was behind Seung Woo Lee of South Korea who came first with 4:23.52. Ram was third in the heats with a timing of 6:24.00.

In K-1 1000 M for men, India's Baroi Pijush Kanti finished third in the semifinal clocking 3:66.74. South Korean Kwang Soo and Tong Su Kang of North Korea finished first and second with timings of 3:47.46 and 3:55.75. Baroi had a timing of 4:33.06 in the heats.

In the K-2 men's 1000 m heats, the Indian pair of A Srivastava and Prem Kumar Rai finished third with a timing of 4:4.59. Uzbek kayaks finished first with 3:43.27 followed by Iranians who clocked 3:56.95.

Indian quartet fourth

India were trailing at fourth place in the five-team field at the end of the opening day of the three-day equestrian competition.

In the dressage test, the Indian quartet of Imtiaz Anees, Amolkit Singh,Rajesh Pattu and Palwinder Singh aggregated 211.60 points for the fourth slot.

The leader in the field was Japan with 149.60 points, followed by Thailand 171.40 points and Korea with 197.20 points.

In the individual dressage test, Imtiaz collected 67.20 penalty points, Amolkjit Singh earned 68 points. Rajesh Pattu conceded 88.2 penalty points. Palwinder Singh also fared poorly and garnered 76.40 penalty points.

The total individual points are counted and make up for the team's total tally.

Jitender romps into second round

Commonwealth Games silver medallist Jitender Kumar gave a flying start to Indian aspirations with a splendid win over 1992 Barcelona Olympics bronze medallist Ri Kum-Chol of North Korea in the first round of middleweight class in the Asian Games boxing competition tonight.

The 22-year-old Jitender Kumar landed solid straight punches on the face of his tricky opponent towards close of the third round to score vital points and opened up a cut under the Korean's left eyealmost on the verge of the gong in the fifth and final round.

Jitender was leading by an overwhelming 16-2 on points but the referee stepped in and stopped the bout after Kum-Chol was examined by the doctor.

The Haryana boxer will now match mitts against the tough Kazakh Vyachesla Burba, who defeated Mooravi of Iran.

Of the other two Indian boxers in the fray, light-heavy Gurcharan Singh takes on Basel Alhindawai (Jordan) tomorrow and super heavy Harpal Singh meets S Shahid of Pakistan on December 13.

India have mixed day at bay

Indian sailors had a mixed luck on the opening day of the regatta in Pattaya today with Gautama Dutta coming up with the best showing by finishing second and third respectively in the first two races in the OK Dinghy open class event.

In the Laser single hander event, Ramachandran Mahesh finished fourth in the first race and then came in fifth in the second, in a field of nine.

A total of 10 races will decide the final standings with the sailors having the optionto discard one poor race.

In the Optimist class, 14-year-old Saif Shaikh was eighth out of 10 competitors in the first race but fared better to finish seventh in the second race.

In the women's class of the event, Amruta Chaphekar finished last and fifth respectively among a small field of six.

In the Enterprise event where much hopes have been pinned for medals, Ashim Mongia and his crewman Pushpendra Garg ended up fifth in the first race among six entrants, but recovered smartly to finish second in the second race.

In the Super Moth open event, Arjun Pradeepak failed to finish the race and did not start in the second.