New Delhi: India produced yet another eye-catching all-round display to scoop up a sackful of medals and surge past England to the second spot in the medals rostrum at the Commonwealth Games on Sunday.
The hosts raked up five gold medals and as many silver and bronze medals from wrestling, archery, shooting, athletics and tennis on another very fruitful day of competitions.
Late in the evening the men's hockey squad routed arch-foes Pakistan 7-4 in a do-or-die pool match to enter the semi finals in front of a packed crowd.
Ranchi-born teenage shooter Deepika Kumari set the tone with a gold in the women's individual recurve at the archery range.
Fellow-archer Rahul Banerjee (men's individual recurve), Harpreet Singh (men's 25m centre fire pistol) and world freestyle wrestling champion Sushil Kumar (66kg) followed suit before Somdev Devvarman lived up to his billing as the top seed by winning the men's singles gold.
The silverware provided earlier in the day by Vijay Kumar (centre fire pistol) and freestyle grapplers Anuj Kumar (84kg) and Joginder Kumar (120kg) was boosted in the evening by field athletes Vikas Gowda (men's discus) and Malliakal Prajusha (women's long jump).
The 14 medals bagged on Sunday increased the country's haul to an impressive 29-22-22, three gold medals clear of third-placed England who were second on Saturday.
India were also just one gold medal shy of equalling their best-ever harvest of 30 at the Manchester Games in 2002 when three gold medals were awarded for each weight class, a practice that has been discontinued since.
England tallied 26-45-32 while Australia were lying far ahead in the top spot by grabbing 61 gold, 38 silver and 37 bronze.
The day commenced in splendid fashion with 17-year-old Deepika Kumari stunning 2004 Athens Olympics bronze medallist Alison James Williamson 6-0, by showing amazing precision and steady nerves in windy conditions to win her second recurve gold of the Games. The earlier one was in the team event.
Harpreet Singh clinched the 25m centre fire pistol gold, archer Rahul Banerjee grabbed the men's individual recurve gold and world wrestling champion Sushil Kumar won the 66kg title by destroying all his rivals to make it another memorable day for India.
Vijay Kumar stood second behind Harpreet, freestyle wrestler Anuj Kumar also finished runner-up in men's 84 kg and then discus thrower Gowda, a perennenial underachiever at the international level, and woman long jumper Malliakal Prajusha also secured silver medals.
Trap shooter Manavjit Singh Sandhu secured a bronze while Jayanta Talukdar finished third behind Banerjee in the men's recurve event.
Sania Mirza and Rushmi Chakravarthi beat compatriots Nirupama Sanjeev and Poojashree Venkatesh to secure the women's doubles bronze in tennis and swell India's medal kitty.
Banerjee's sister Dola finished third in women's recurve and grappler Anil Kumar got the bronze in 55kg freestyle.
Vijender Singh, the pin-up boy of Indian boxing floored his first round rival Elias Nashivela of Namibia with a knock-out punch in under 2 minutes in the 75kg quarter final bout.
Vijender Singh uncorked a left hook early in the bout to score an intimidating knock-out win and assure himself of a second successive Games medal.
But defending champion Akhil Kumar made a shock exit after being beaten by Olympic medalist Bruno Julie of Mauritius in the 56kg quarter finals.
To bring more cheers, Asian silver-medallist Jai Bhagwan (60kg), Asian bronze medallist Manoj Kumar (64kg) and nine-time national champion Dilbag Singh (69kg) also made the semis and assured the country of a medal.
The four boxers joined Amandeep Singh (49kg) and Suranjoy Singh (52kg), who won their quarterfinal bouts yesterday, in the last four.
Comments
0 comment