Swimmers bag seven, archers and athletes grab ten gold medals; weightlifters, cyclists hold sway
Guwahati/ SHILLONG: India plundered most of the gold on offer for a fourth successive day with swimmers, archers and track-and-field athletes ensuring that the host country’s top position on the medals tally remained unchallenged in the 12th South Asian Games here on Tuesday.
Continuing their terrific show, Indians took their overall medal count to 124 (78 gold, 36 silver and 10 bronze).
Holding on to the distant second spot were Sri Lanka with 84 medals, including 17 gold, 36 silver and 31 bronze medals.
The most stunning performance on Tuesday was by the swimmers, who swept 7 gold medals followed by track-and-field athletes and archers. The archers won all five golds of the day, while the athletes also won similar number of gold along with six silver and three bronze.
India also won both the men’s and women’s gold in volleyball after defeating Sri Lanka in both the finals.
In the last three days, Sri Lanka had been giving competition to the home country in swimming but on Tuesday it was the local favourites who ruled the roost at the Dr Zakir Hussain Aquatics Complex here.
Saurabh Sangvekar started the gold-winning streak for India, setting a new Games record of 3:58.84 seconds to win the 400m freestyle for men. V Malvika secured the gold in 400m freestyle for women, setting a new meet record of 4:30.08 minutes.
Sajan Prakash then bagged India’s third gold of the day and his fourth of the Games, by winning the 200m butterfly for men with a new record time of 2:03.02.
This was followed by Damini Gowda winning the gold in 200m butterfly in yet another Games record time of 2:21.12. PS Madhu, in 50m backstroke for men, also set a new record of 26.86 seconds.
The gold in 50m backstroke for women was clinched by Kimiko Raheem of Sri Lanka, setting a new record of 29.75 seconds.
Indians also won the gold in 4x200m freestyle for both men and women.
Before the swimmers, the archers had set the tone in the morning session in Shillong winning all the five gold medals up for grabs to take their overall count to 10 gold and 4 silver.
Indian women’s trio of Deepika Kumari, Laxmirani Majhi and Bombayala Devi won the recurve Gold at Polo Grounds in the morning. The men’s team of Tarundeep Rai, Gurucharan Besra and Jayanta Talukdar followed suit soon.
India’s mixed pair of Rai and Deepika then added a second gold medal to their kitty, India’s third overall in recurve, while in the afternoon session, the recurve archers bagged two gold and as many silver in the all-Indian individual finals to sign off in style with grabbing all possible 10 gold medals and four silver.
The story was no different in the track-and-field arena on Tuesday.
Rio Olympics bound shot-putter Manpreet Kaur stole the limelight as Indians pocketed five gold medals on the opening day of the event.
India won five gold, six silver and three bronze in the nine events held at the Indira Gandhi Athletics Stadium. Sri Lanka gave a tough fight to the home athletes by winning four gold, one silver and five bronze.
Kaur bagged the first gold of the day for India in the women’s shot put event. Neeraj Kumar bagged the second gold for India in men’s hammer throw with an effort of 66.14m. Mayookha Johny took the gold in women’s long jump by clearing 6.43m. Another Indian, G Shradha bagged the silver with an effort of 6.19m.
In both men’s and women’s 5000m races, Indians finished one- two.
But the Indians disappointed in the 100m dash of both men and women with the Sri Lankas running away with the honours.
Elsewhere, Indian lifters bagged one gold and a silver on the concluding day of weightlifting event to end their campaign with 12 golds and one silver.
Out of the 15 events in the weightlifting competition, Indians won gold in 13 and a silver in another to complete an overwhelmingly dominant performance.
The Indian men weightlifters bagged six gold and one silver out of eight events while their women counterparts won six gold out of seven on offer.
Sushila Panwar secured the lone gold medal for India today in women’s +75 kg category as she lifted a total of 198kg. In men’s +105 kg category, Gurdeep Singh finished in second place with a total lift of 345 kg.
The cyclists, on the other hand, notched up one gold, two silver and a bronze on the final day of competition. They grabbed six gold out of the overall eight, besides winning five silver and two bronze medals as well in the total count. In the women’s 80km individual road race, T Bidyaluxmi won the gold in 2 hours 30 minutes and 55.350 seconds.
Chirag Sharma added to India’s gold medal tally in Wushu competition by emerging champion in his event. (PTI)