It was Parul’s second medal at the ongoing Asian Games, earlier, she had won a silver medal in the women’s 3,000m steeplechase event on Monday.

Parul Chaudhary produced an excellent finish in the women’s 5000m as she overtook Japan’s Ririka Hironaka a few meters from the closing mark.

Parul clocks 15:14.75. Japan’s Ririka takes silver.

More details awaited.

The Chinese officials tried to also disqualify Jyothi, though she was slower than the Chinese runner and then allowed both of them to compete under protest as Jyothi demonstrated with the officials.

Jyothi ran the race and finished third with the timing of 12.91, behind the two Chinese runners, the one disqualified earlier finishing second ahead of the Indian.

But the Indian officials protested within minutes of the race getting completed

The officials eventually disqualified the Chinese runner Yanni Wu and upgrades Jyothi’s medal to silver.

“In my entire life as an athlete I have never seen such a thing — officials first disqualify an athlete and then bringing her back. They tried to throw Jyothi out but she did not make any false start, her hands were touching the track when the Chinese runner was already a step and half ahead. We lodged a protest immediately,” said Anju Bobby George who is part of the Athletics Federation of India executive committee as athletes representative.

The Indian protest seemed to have worked and the officials finally took the correct decision.

But the entire drama and the illegal attempt to get her disqualified seems to have affected Jyothi as she could not give her best.

“I don’t know much about the rules but I was clear, I did not make a false start,” Jyothi told the media later in the mixed zone.

Rohidas scored the team’s third goal four minutes after half-time. Abhishek netted a brace (13th and 48th minute), while Mandeep Singh found the target in the 24th minute. Once they were 4-0 up, Indians let the foot off the pedal a bit to allow Japan score twice in the final five minutes.

It was Rohidas’ second goal in the tournament, having scored in the 16-0 drubbing of Uzbekistan four days ago.

India, with a tally of 6 points, are on top of Pool A having scored 36 goals and conceded 3 in three games.

They will face Pakistan and Bangladesh in their remaining league fixtures.

Another Indian shooter, Ashi Chouksey, finished third in the event.

Sift Kaur Samra and Ashi Chouksey along with Manini Kaushik had earlier won silver in the 50m rifle 3 positions women’s team event with a score of 1764.

Prior to this, Manu Bhaker, Esha Singh and Rhythm Sangwan had set the medal tally ringing by bagging gold in women’s 25m pistol team event. Two shooters also made to the individual final of the same event. Manu Bhaker qualified first, Esha Singh finished fifth and Rhythm Sangwan finished seventh.

These wins have taken India’s medal tally to 18 at the Asian Games 2023. The Indian contingent has bagged five gold, five silver and eight bronze medals, so far, at Hangzhou. Besides equestrian dressage team gold medal, India had won a silver and a bronze medal in sailing on Tuesday.