Thiruvananthapuram: Meghalaya’s Th Gangarani Devi clinched bronze for Judo in the women’s event (below 63 Kg) at the 35th National Games here on Thursday. This was the second medal for Meghalaya in the event.
Rajinder Singh smashed the national record in men’s javelin throw, while former Asian champion Renjith Maheshwary nabbed his maiden gold with a new meet mark in triple jump.
But what remained unchallenged was the Services Sports Control Board’s (SSCB) domination on the medals table as they remained on top with a tally of 131 (81 gold, 23 silver and 27 bronze so far). Hosts Kerala displaced Haryana from the second spot owing to a strong athletics performance to total 119 (34 gold, 37 silver and 48 bronze). Haryana took the third spot with 33 gold, 37 silver and 22 bronze.
Amid a sea of meet records tumbling, a new national record was created when Haryana’s Rajinder Singh cleared 82.23m to better the 80.72m mark of Anil Kumar Singh (2008). SSCB’s Davinder Singh (75.34m) and Uttar Pradesh’s Vipin Kasana (75.18m) were the respective silver and bronze medallists.
Elsewhere, veteran long-distance runner Preeja Sreedharan bid adieu to the track with a 10,000m silver even as another local lady O P Jaisha stole the limelight by collecting her second gold medal at the Games with a new meet record of 33:08.55sec. She had earlier won the 5000m gold with a meet record.
Sreedharan clocked 34:58.85sec in her final race egged on by an enthusiastic crowd at University Stadium. Maharashtra’s Swati Gadhave had to be content with a bronze after finishing in 34:59.73sec.
Former Commonwealth Games bronze-medallist Renjith got over the disappointment of disaqualification in men’s long jump by shattering the meet record in triple jump for a gold medal. The 29-year-old, who won bronze medals in the past two National Games, cleared 16.66m to better the 16.62m record set by Arpinder Singh in the 2011 Games.
The silver went to defending champion Arpinder, while the bronze was clinched by SSCB’s Rakesh Babu.
There was a massive upset in the men’s 400m hurdles when former Asian Games gold-medallist and the national and meet record holder Joseph Abraham was disqualified for a false start, leading to the crowning of a new champion in SSCB’s Durgesh Kumar much to the disappointment of home fans.
Another SSCB man, M Ramachandran took the silver, while the bronze was taken by Tamil Nadu’s Binauaquito Thyagarajan.
Anu Raghavan notched up the 400m women’s hurdles gold medal. Anu clocked 58.63sec to finish ahead of Haryana’s Santosh Kumari and Kerala’s VV Jisha .
The first track and field event of the day was the women’s 100m hurdles and a new meet record was set when Tamil Nadu’s G Gayathry completed the race ion 13.66sec to beat the previous mark of 13.81sec created by Anuradha Biswal in 2002. Karnataka’s Meghna Shettyand Tamil Nadu’s Deepika ended up being the silver and a bronze medal winners respectively.
The men’s 110m hurdles meet record was also breached and it was hardly a surprise that it was SSCB’s Siddhant Thingalaya who did the honours. Thingalaya, the reigning national champion and also the national record holder, clocked 13.83sec to beat the 14.10sec mark set by Gurpreet Singh in 2001.
The silver in this event went to Tamil Nadu through Surendar, while Telangana’s Kuppusami Premkumar ended with a bronze.
SSCB stole the thunder from Kerala in the men’s high jump competition as well when Jitin Thomas cleared a new meet record of 2.16m to snatch the gold medal from local favourite Sreenith Mohan, who had to settle for silver. Punjab’s Jagdeep Singh was third.
There was a surprise in cycling’s women’s sprint elite race in which Asian medallist and pre-race favourite Deborah of Andaman and Nicobar had to be content with a silver after losing out on a top spot to Manipur’s C H Rameshwori. Kerala’s Lidiyamil M Sunny finished as the bronze-medallist.
The men’s race was won by Punjab’s Amarjith Singh, followed by the SSCB duo of Alan Baby and Manoj R L.
At Thrissur’s boxing arena, the finalists were decided. In the women’s 51kg semifinals, Haryana’s Sonia set up a summit clash with Arunachal Pradesh’s Tonibala Chanu after beating Kerala’s Alphonosa Mariathomas 27-8. Chanu got the better of Uttarakhand’s Krishna Thapa 24-12.
In the 60kg division, Manipur’s Chaoba Devi triumphed over Jammu and Kashmir’s Anju Bala 20-11 and will now face home favourite Maisnam Meenakumaridevi, who defeated Delhi’s Geeta Solanki 13-9.
The 75kg final will feature Manipur’s Memthoi Devi and Jharkhand’s Aruna Mishra. While Memthoi trumped Arunachal’s S Ibemcha Devi 30-27, Aruna hammered Andhra’s Marthamma Sattivada 21-7.
The men’s finalists were dominated by SSCB boys with Sandeep (52kg), Durgarao Vankala (56kg) and Amit Karki (69kg) enetring the summit clashes of their respective weight categories.
In Kochi, the badminton event eneterd its last stage and former national champion Sourabh Verma was among the finalists. Verma, representing Madhya Pradesh, edged past teammate Abhimany Singh 21-18 21-14 to make the finals, where he will face Haryana’s Akshit Mahajan, who beat Madhya Pradesh’s Sameer Verma.
Among the women, Telangana’s Rituparna Das made the final after beating Mahashtra’s Tanvi Lad.
In men’s taekwando finals, Goa’s Anand defeated SSCB’s Vipin 11-3 to win the under-80 gold, while the under-58 top honours also went to SSCB after Santoba Singh sailed past Manipur’s Vunga Raj 16-12.
In the women’s competition, Kerala’s Kerala’s Margerette Maria beat Maharashtra’s Aishwarya Ravade 11-6 to win the under-73 gold. The under-46 gold was picked up by Assam’s Monica Paruah after beating Jharkhand’s Prity Kumari 10-9.
In wushu, SSCB won the Taoulu (Daoshu) gold through Chirag Sharma, who logged 8.97 points, beating Manipur’s H Dewan Singh and Madhya Pradesh’s Tarun Namdeo .
SSCB swept the 10,000m men’s race with G Lakshman breaching the meet record by freezing the clock at 29:13.50sec, followed by teammates Kheta Ramand Gopi T.
The men’s 4x100m relay gold was clinched by Kerala (40.77sec), while SSCB fetched the silver ahead of Madhya Pradesh . The women’s gold also went in Kerala’s kitty with a new meet record of 45.26sec, followed by Tamil Nadu and Odisha. (PTI)
