India win their first golds, North Koreans snub South on podium

HANGZHOU, China: India won their first golds and North Koreans stirred up drama by snubbing their South Korean rivals on the podium on day two of the Hangzhou Asian Games on Monday (Sep 25).

Some 12,400 athletes from 45 nations are competing for 481 gold medals in 40 sports at the Games in the eastern Chinese city, which were delayed by a year due to COVID-19 measures.

India's first gold came in the men's 10 metre air rifle team before their women's cricketers beat Sri Lanka by 19 runs to clinch a second gold, the country's first in cricket since the sport joined the quadrennial Asian Games in Guangzhou in 2010.

Earlier the Bangladesh women's cricket team beat Pakistan in the bronze match to claim the country's first Asian Games medal since 2014 at Incheon, South Korea.

Cricket, which has hopes of becoming an Olympic sport, returned to the Asian Games this year after being omitted from the last edition in Indonesia in 2018.

Esports, which is huge in China, is a medal event at the Asian Games for the first time and the participation of Lee Sang-hyeok - known by his gaming handle 'Faker' - has given the competition's profile a big boost.

The South Korean did not disappoint his legions of fans on Monday, helping his Korean team beat Kazakhstan 1-0 in one of the preliminary matches in the 'League of Legends' category.

Elsewhere on day two of competition, three North Korean marksmen refused to join their South Korean rivals in a group photo of medal winners after narrowly missing out on gold in a men's team shooting competition.

China picked up golds in artistic gymnastics, swimming, skateboarding, taekwondo, mountain biking, fencing, wushu, shooting and rowing. But Uzbekistan stole some of their thunder by pipping the hosts to gold