HYDERABAD, India, October 30. ALGERIA’S Sofiane David gave Africa its first win by leading the 400 IM in 4:39.89 in the opening day of swimming at the Afro-Asian Games here. Senegal's Malick Fall (4:44.17) and India's Rehan Poncha (4:45.71) finished second and third respectively.
The Algerian then played an important role in the 4x200m freestyle relay with his team, consisting of Mahrez Mebarek, Slimani Aghiles and Nicholas Wilson, winning the gold at 7:57.82. The host country’s 800 free relay of Akbar Ali Mir, Srinand Srinivas, Rahul Batra ad Amar Muralidharan finished second in 8:09.57 while Uzbekistan's team of Vasilev Petr, Agafonov Alexandar, Puhnatiy Oleg, Irgashev Timvr finished third in 8:14.59.
The men's 50 free was won by Uzbekistan's Ravil Nachayev (23.63). China's Than Zuo (23.70) and Nigeria's Musa Bakare (23.87) finished second and third respectively.
South Korea’s Lee Sun finished first in the women’s 400 IM in 5:08.87. India’s Richa Mishra was second in 5:10.99. Algerian Faiza Sabria Dahane took the bronze at 5:11.70.
The women's 4x200m freestyle relay was won by the Chinese team of Zhu Ying Wen, Zhou Xiao, Wei Litin and Chen Hua in 8:39.35. South African’s team of Christiane Zweigers, Natalie Du Toit, Vella van Rensburg and Sabria Dahane was second in 8:58.06 while the Indian squad of Nisha Millet, Parita Parekh, Awani Sawant, Sivaranjani won the bronze in 9:09.08.