But, with the Indian Olympic Association letting out little by way of information, his arrival into Bangkok went almost unnoticed till his name appeared in the draw.

Today, the Manipuri entered the semi-finals and assured India of a second bronze from the discipline. There are only four boxers here and two are assured bronze medals -- Gurcharan Singh entered the semi-finals of the 81 kg category on Friday.

Incidentally, it was in Bangkok that Dingko won King's Cup Gold last year and some years back, it was here in the Thai capital that he won his first major international medal -- a silver in Asian youth event. Dingko pittedagainst a 17-year-old Vireat Svay of Cambodia dominated his bout and outclassed his opponent. So much so, the referee had to stop the fight one minute 20 seconds into the fifth and final round.

Dingko will now meet a local favourite, Sontary Wongprates, who defeated Tusah Adnan of Malaysia 19-6 on points.

The other half has the Olympic silver medallist, Marat Mazimbayev of Kazhakstan who beat T Davaatseren of Mongolia 8-5 on points. In the other quarter-final in the category, Uzbek Timur Tulyakov, a gold medallist from 1994 Hiroshima Asian Games, beat R Kwang Sik of North Korea on points 12-7 to assure himself of a medal.

India lying in second spot in team trap

As China picked up all the four gold medals available on the day, the Indian trap shooters gave signs of fetching two medals on the first of the two-day event.

After the first day, Commonwealth Trap pairs champions Mansher Singh and Manavjit Singh Sandhu both had 68 out of 75 and with the third Indian entry, Zorawar Singh, just onepoint behind at 67.

The Indians were lying second in the team event. Kuwaitis took three of the top four places and seemed set to wrest at least the team gold with a total of 212 between them, which was nine shots adrift of the Indian trio, who aggregated 203. Thailand were lying third with 199 and the Japanese had 196 and Chinese 194. In the women's sport rifle three positions, Indians finished way down in the order as China won the individual and team gold.

Shan Hong going into the final for the top eight with a handy lead of three points made light of a somewhat low 95.8 to finish with 672.8 and a gold medal. Though there were three Chinese in the final, only Hong won an individual medal. Olga Dovgun of Kazhakstan got the silver with 670.8 (574 plus 96.8) and Kong Hyun-Ah got the bronze with 670.2 (573 plus 97.2).

Anjali Vedpathak was the best among Indians with 562 for the 15th place, while Roopa Unnikrishnan with 559 and Suma Dixit with 558 were 20th and 23rd.

In the team event, India with 1,679points were seventh.

Cueists in quarters

India entered the quarterfinal of the team snooker while both their pairs in the eight-ball pool doubles were defeated at the quarterfinal stage of the Asian Games billiards and snooker competition today.

In team snooker, India scored a 3-0 victory over United Arab Emirates. Alok Kumar defeated Mohammed Al-Jokar 5-1 (60-31, 40-22, 69-31, 42-74, 60-40, 54-48) and Yasin Merchant swamped Obaid Almehairi 5-0 with scores of 63-13, 74-14, 72-31, 65-24, 83-0.

In the third match, Devendra Joshi and Mohammad Alhashemi were tied 3-all when the UAE player conceded the best of nine-frame affair. Joshi won the first frame and then went down 3-1 before recovering and the scores read 75-55, 7-77, 37-43, 43-58, 62-50, 73-62.

In eight ball pool, Shyam Jagtiani and Prem Prakash entered the quarterfinal with a walkover from the Vietnam duo of Cong-Duc Le and The Ly, but were beaten 3-9 in the last eight stage by Khaled Almutairi and Aref Abdullah.The other Indian pairDharminder Singh Lily and Manan Chandra beat Tiong Boon Tan and Chye Hian Soh of Singapore 7-3, but fell 3-9 to Kunihiko Takahashi and Satoshi Kawabata in the quarterfinal.

Indian rider makes it to final

Kapil Modi qualified for the individual dressage event final by placing 16th in the preliminary stage.

Modi, astride Domino, aggregated 818 points from five stages to come 16th among the list of 20 qualifiers. South Korea's Choi Myung-Jin topped the list riding Regal by logging 1013 points.

Nisha Millet fails in heats

India's Nisha Millet finished 15th in heats of 50 metre freestyle for women. Nisha clocked 28.75 seconds in the second heat, much lower than Sumika Minamoto of Japan, who had the best timing in all the three heats clocking 26.26 seconds.

Uzma crashes out in first round

India's Uzma Khan went down to Maricris Fernandes of The Philippines 4-6, 1-6 while Nirupama Vaidyanathan and Manisha Malhotra lost 2-6, 2-6 to Korean pair Cho Yoon Jeong and Park Sung-Hee in thefirst round of women's tennis. Uzma Khan and Sai Jayalakshmy were tamed 2-6, 2-6 by Japanese duo Rika Hiraki and Nana Miyagi.

Wrestlers Kaka, Gurbinder go down

Kaka Pawar and Gurbinder Singh crashed out of reckoning in the Greco Roman of wrestling competition. In the 54 kg class, Pawar beat Nguyen Nhuthihh of Vietnam 11-0 in two minutes. He lost his next two bouts.

Gurbinder Singh, in the 63 kg class, lost 1-4 to Almashod Zahoris of Syria in the opening round. He received bye in his next bout but failed to score any point.

Kahlon slips to seventh spot

Harmeet Kahlon spoiled his card with a six over 78 to slip from second overnight to seventh, pushing India to fourth from joint-second in the men's team reckoning.

The women's team maintained their fifth ranking after the third and penultimate day. India were fourth, nine strokes adrift of leaders Japan, while the Philippines were second and Chinese Taipei were in the third position.