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India eyeing gold again

By Our Sports Reporter

NEW DELHI AUG. 29 . Asian Games defending billiards champion, India, is ready for another strike at the gold. India is seeded top in billiards by the Busan Asian Games Organising Committee (BAGOC).

India had a haul of two gold, one silver and one bronze medal in the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games from cue sports. Both the gold medals and the silver were won in billiards, and a repeat performance in Korea should be along expected lines.

Amateur World champion Geet Sethi leads the Indian challenge with Devendra Joshi and Alok Kumar making up the billiards team. Sethi had to settle for a silver in Bangkok when he lost an emotionally-draining final to teammate Ashok Shandilya.

In 2002, he will be up against Joshi, provided they reach the final. The seedings do offer that probability. While Sethi is seeded number one, Joshi gets number two, meaning the two will head the separate halves.

In the last two competitive meetings between the two, both have won once each. Sethi defeated Joshi in the semifinal of the World championship in Christchurch in 2001, and the tables were turned in Ahmedabad where Joshi scored over Sethi in a third-place play-off, in the Nationals.

Then, the English billiards was played on the time format, a style in which Sethi, Joshi and Shandilya are exponents at. This time around, after winning an acrimonious battle over retaining the cue sport in the Asiad fold, the Asian Confederation of Billiards Sports (ACBS) decided to conduct English billiards in the `100 points up' format, in best of three frames. This would save enormous time, one of the main factor that was bugging the Korean organisers.

Now, it was time for the Indians to mold their game in 100 points up format. Sethi excelled, as did Joshi and Alok Kumar. But, during the four Asian Games preparatory camps held so far, Shandilya failed to cope up with this format. Shandilya, the Asian Games double gold medallist, hence, had to be ignored.

Shandilya was the only notable, but fair omission, in the team submitted by the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India (BSFI) to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA). The rest of the team, even in snooker, pool and carom, features those who were in their best of form during the preparatory camps conducted by National coach Michael Ferriera.

After completing four rigorous camps with all the probables, the BSFI has now planned a 12-day final camp again in Bangalore, only for the Busan-bound team. If the billiards room will be India's den, it will have to cause a few upsets in snooker and pool to give itself a realistic chance of winning medals from these disciplines. To expect something from carom would be far-fetched.

There are 10 medals each of three colours at stake in the Asian Games. The event-wise break-up of medals is as follows: Billiards (2 gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze), snooker (3-3-3), pool nine-ball (3-3-3), pool eight-ball (1-1-1) and carom (1-1-1).

Meanwhile, the fall-out of the ACBS' negotiations with the BAGOC was that it was made responsible to manage the entire cue sport show in Busan. The ACBS, along with the Korean Billiards Federation, will provide entire equipment, the referees and the technical staff at no cost to the BAGOC.

As such, the BSFI has been instructed to send in two referees, and it has selected Railways' Ajay Rastogi and Karnataka's S. Jairaj.

The seedings: Snooker: Singles: 1. Pakistan, 2. Malaysia, 3. Hong Kong, 4. Malaysia; Doubles: 1. Malaysia, 2. Thailand, 3. Pakistan, 4. Thailand; Team: 1. Hong Kong, 2. Thailand, 3. Pakistan, 4. Malaysia.

Billiards: Singles: 1. India, 2. India, 3. Thailand, 4. Philippines; Doubles: 1. India, 2. Thailand, 3. India, 4. Philippines.

Pool: Nine-ball: Singles: 1. Chinese Taipei, 2. Japan, 3. Chinese Taipei, 4. Thailand; Doubles: 1. Philippines, 2. Chinese Taipei, 3. Thailand, 4. Chinese Taipei.

Eight-ball: Singles: 1. Chinese Taipei, 2. Singapore, 3. Japan, 4. Philippines.

Carom: Three-cushion: 1. Japan, 2. Japan, 3. Korea, 4. Korea.

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