Indian climbers out of medal contention, 3 lost in quarterfinals

Indian challenge ended in speed climbing as Anisha Verma, Shivpreet Pannu, and Aman Verma lost in their respective quarterfinals at the Asian Games here on Tuesday.

In the men's speed round of eight, Aman Verma lost to Indonesia's Veddriq Leonardo by a narrow margin of 17 seconds at the Shaoxing Keqiao Yangshan Sport Climbing Centre.

Earlier in the qualification round, Aman finished 16th after producing a best effort of 6.205s to advance to the quarterfinals, while Dhiraj Dinkar Birajdar failed to qualify as he finished at the 20th rank after clocking 7.313s.

In the women's speed event, India's Anisha Verma lost to Chinese Di Niu by a huge margin of six minutes, while Shivpreet Pannu lost to Indonesia's Rajiah Sallsabillah. Both players were knocked out of the tournament.

Earlier in the women's speed qualifying round, both Anisha and Shivpreet finished 13th and 14th and advanced to the quarterfinals with their best attempt 9.495s and 9.956s, respectively.

The women's team will contest in speed relay qualification match on Wednesday.

The Sport Climbing was inducted in the Asian Games at Jakarta in 2018, and India so far has not won a medal in the sport at the event.

In speed climbing, athletes, who record the fastest time while climbing a vertical wall while competing against the clock or their opponent, wins.