PANAJI, Nov 9: Maharashtra, with 228 medals including 80 golds, topped the medal table and took the Raja Bhalindra Singh Trophy for the overall championship in the 37th National Games which ended in Goa on Thursday.
Maharashtra’s triumph ended Services’ reign at the top since the 2007 Games in Guwahati. Services finished second and Haryana was third.
Karnataka swimmer Srihari Nataraj (8 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze) was adjudged the best male athlete of the Games while gymnasts Sanyukta Prasen Kale and Pranati Nayak of Odisha (4 gold, 1 silver each) were named as the best female athletes.
Goa registered their best-ever finish of 9th with a total of 92 medals, including 27 gold.
With just 12 gold medals on offer on the final day of competitions, Maharashtra were already assured of the top spot.
Maharashtra dominated Yogasana competition by clinching three of the five gold medals on offer. Abhidnya Patil rounded off their gold medal tally with a winning finish in women’s 25m Pistol final.
Patil was so dominant in the 25m Pistol final that she could have won the gold even without firing a single shot on target in the final series.
She managed just one to finish with 35 points, five ahead of second placed Simranpreet Kaur of Punjab. Payal of Haryana won the bronze with a score of 28 points.
Earlier, Olympian Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar of Madhya Pradesh showed tremendous composure under pressure to add the men’s 10m Air Rifle gold to his 50m Rifle 3-position triumph.
Tomar came up with shots of 10.6 and 10.4 under pressure in the final series to pip Services’ Sandeep Singh by just 0.3 points.
The MP shooter was trailing by 0.3 points going into the final two shots but underlined his stature as one of the top rifle shooters in the country by finishing with a total score of 250.7 in the final.
Sandeep scored 250.4 for his silver winning effort while Uttar Pradesh’s Pratham Bhadana took bronze with a score of 250.4.In the women’s trap final, Punjab’s Rajeshwari Kumari took the gold medal with a score of 44 points with Uttar Pradesh’s Sabina Haris taking the silver with a score of 43 points. Aashima Ahlawat of Haryana finished with bronze.
In the men’s trap final, Haryana’s Lakshay Sheoran shot 47 ahead of Tamil Nadu’s Prithviraj Tondaiman’s 45 to clinch the gold. M. Bakhtyaruddin Malek of Gujarat won the bronze.
At the Delhi Golf Course, Punjab’s Amandeep Drall did the double, winning gold in women’s individual and team events. Amandeep prevailed over Zara Anand of Uttar Pradesh and Vani Kapoor of Haryana who won the silver and bronze respectively.
She then paired with Mannat Brar to win the team gold and complete the double.
In the men’s category, Karnataka’s Yashas Chandra won the gold with a score of 273 while Om Prakash Chouhan of MP took the silver and Kartik Sharma of Haryana clinched the bronze.
Punjab’s Harveer Singh took the gold in men’s cycling Road Race (Agencies)
