Cycling: Ronaldo Singh creates national record on way to men's sprint semifinals

India's Ronaldo Singh created a national record in a 200m Flying time trial by breaching the 10 seconds barrier on way to the semifinals of the men's Elite sprint race event on the fourth day of the Asian Track Cycling Championship here on Tuesday.

World junior champion and Asian record holder Ronaldo, who had bagged the country's first-ever international medal in the 1km time trial event by claiming bronze on Monday, clocked 9.946 seconds to create the national record. His earlier national record was 10.168 seconds, which he had set in UCI Track Cycling Nation Cup at St Petersburg, Russia in July last year.

"Tomorrow is a big day for me as I will perform in one of my favourite events, I'm ready to give my personal best to earn the medal for India. This will also show me my preparedness for the upcoming Commonwealth Games," said Ronaldo, who will challenge Andrey Chugay of Kazakhstan in the semifinals.

However, none of the Indian cyclists could reach the podium in six finals on day four of the competition. Indian rider Esow once again failed to win his quarterfinal event of men's sprint, losing to Andrey Chugay of Kazakhstan to finish empty-handed in this tournament. Harashveer Singh Sekhon gave a good fight to Korean opponent Euro Kim and Japan's Naoki Kojima in the 30,000m points race before finishing fourth with 43 points.

Hammadi Al Mirza secured gold in this event with 69 points, followed by Korea (61 points) and Japan (60 points) riders in this power event, where peddlers have to go for sprints after every 10 laps of 120 laps race. The day did not start on a good note for the Indian team.

Junior cyclist Himanshi Singh earned second place in the 7.5km scratch race but was later disqualified on grounds of dangerous driving. She was blocked behind the Malaysian rider and in an attempt to go ahead of the Malaysian and Japanese rider, she made a technical fault and was disqualified by the Commissionaire. The gold was won by Ci Hui Nyo of Malaysia ahead of Japan's Mizuki Ikeda and Sofiya Karimova of Uzbekistan.

Overall, India is in fifth place with two gold, five silver and thirteen bronze medals. Japan leads the medal tally with eleven golds, six silvers and two bronze, while the Koreans are in the second position with ten gold, nine silver, and two bronze ahead of Kazakhstan, who have four gold, and three silver and a bronze in their kitty.