After Ronaldo, David Beckham Too Ends Asian Games Campaign For India Without Medal

Indian cyclist David Beckham Elkatohchoongo's hopes of winning a medal at the Asian Games ended after he lost the quarterfinal match in men's sprint event at the Asian Games on Thursday. David lost to Kaiya Ota after finishing 2.395 seconds behind the Japanese in the first race and 0.046 seconds in the second race at the sprint quarterfinal heat 2. He will now compete for 5th–8th place in the event. Among others, Niraj Kumar finished in seventh place with 24 points in the men's Omnium Scratch race 1/4.

CYCLING

David Beckham advances to Quarter Finals of Men's Sprint!

Terrific campaign so far! #Cycling #AsianGames2022 #AsianGames #AsianGames2023 pic.twitter.com/AMbi410xd9

David Beckham Elkatohchoongo and Ronaldo Laitonjam Singh are both track cyclists for India.

And they did bend it like Beckham as they sped round the steeply banked curves of the Chun'an Jieshou Sports Centre Velodrome.

Ronaldo had made his Games debut on Tuesday, helping India to fifth place in Tuesday's team sprint qualification.

Beckham placed ninth in Wednesday's individual sprint qualifying, four places higher than Ronaldo.

"My father was a footballer in the national team, and he was a huge fan of David Beckham," Elkatohchoongo explained.

"When I was born in the hospital, they told my mum: if it's a boy, then it's David Beckham."

One might think with a name like that he might have turned to football rather than cycling.

"I played football when I was young, 14 years old," he said.

"I switched to cycling in 2017, and I started my professional cycling (career) in Delhi five years ago, and now I'm in the professional league properly."

Laitonjam's father was similarly a massive fan of the former Barcelona and Brazil wizard Ronaldinho.

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