There was no stopping the Indian juggernaut in the 12th South Asian Games with the country’s swimmers, wrestlers and weightlifters continuing their demolition of competition to fetch a bulk of the gold medals and complete a second successive day of supremacy here.
India stood heads and shoulders above competition to top the medals tally with a count of 43, which included 28 gold, 12 silver and 3 bronze medals. The second spot continued to be held by Sri lanka with a total of 38 medals (8 gold, 17 silver, 13 bronze).
The bulk of the medals on Sunday came through the swimmers, who scooped 10 in all — including 4 gold, 5 silver and 1 bronze. The wrestlers added 4 gold and a silver, while the weightlifters snared 3 gold medals.
On Sunday, Amit Dhankar (70kg), Mamta (53kg), Manju Kumari (58kg) and Pradeep (61kg) picked up the gold medals in their respective events.
The lone silver for Indian in wrestling came through Gopal Yadav (86kg) who lost to Mohd Imam of Pakistan in the final.
India also continued their overwhelming dominance in the weightlifting event by bagging three more gold medals.
Saraswati Rout (women’s 58 kg), Sambo lapung (men’s 69 kg) and Ajay Singh (men’s 77 kg) won a gold each on Sunday to take India’s medal tally from weightlifting to six gold out of eight on offer in two days.
Rout brought the first gold of the day, and fourth for India, in women’s 58kg with a total lift of 187 kg (80 kg in snatch + 107 kg clean and jerk). Fullapati Chakma of Bangladesh won the silver by lifting a total of 144 kg (63 kg + 81 kg) while Mohideen Umeria of Sri lanka got the bronze with 142 kg (61 kg + 81 kg).
lapung then gave India another gold in men’s 69 kg event in a close contest. After trailing by 5 kg in snatch, the Indian lifted five more kilograms than his Sri lanka rival M Disanayake in clean and jerk and the two lifters tied on total lift of 281kg.
lapung was adjudged the gold medal winner as his body weight (68.8 kg) was lesser by 200 grams than Disanayake (69.00 kg) who won the silver. Sufiyan Abu of Pakistan won the bronze with a total lift of 275 kg (124kg + 151kg).
Youngster Ajay secured the third gold of the day with his personal best effort. Six clear lifts took Ajay to gold with a total lift of 305 kg (136 kg + 169 kg). Chinthana of Sri lanka won the silver with a total lift of 300 kg and Umar Rasool lone of Pakistan got the bronze with a total lift of 281 kg.
In Shillong, Y Sapna Devi and Anjul Namdeo clinched a gold and bronze in the women’s and men’s events respectively of wushu. Sapna dished out a fine display to win the gold with a huge margin as she secured 9.45 points to emerge champion in the women’s taolu (Changquan) event.
The men’s taolu (Changquan) event, on the other hand, went down the wire as Namdeo settled for a bronze with 8:66 points behind Nepalese Bijay Sinjali’s 8.80 and P l H lakshan, who won the gold with 8:86.
Also continuing their fine show were the cyclists, who added a gold, a silver and a bronze medal on Sunday.
lidiyamol Sunny and Tongbram Manorama Devi bagged a gold and silver in women’s 40km criterium event.
Sunny accumulated 30 points to bag the top spot, while Manorama secured 26 points as Indians returned one-two for the third time in a row. In men’s 60km criterium event, India’s Pankaj Kumar bagged a bronze with 21 total points.
Also performing well were the archers and the hosts remained on course to grab all the 10 gold medals on offer by storming into the finals of the recurve and compound team and mixed pair events.
Indian women shuttlers also began their campaign with an easy 3-0 win over their Nepalese opponents.
Cynosure of Indian badminton team at the SA Games, PV Sindhu gave the team a perfect start with a 21-2, 21-8 win over Sara Devi Tamang.
18-year-old rising Indian shuttler Gadde Ruthvika Shivani used her height to advantage to breeze past Nangsal Tamang 21-6, 21-2 to make it 2-0 for the hosts.
Meanwhile in men’s event, India beat Afghanistan 3-0 with Ajay Jayram, HS Prannoy, Akshay Dewalkar and Pranay Chopra securing facile victories to top Group A.
Indian men's hockey team beat Bangladesh 4-1 in their opening match. While Indian women’s hockey team mauled Nepal 24-0 in a round robin league match.
The day was not without disappointment though with India suffering a major setback in squash. The fancied men’s duo of Saurav Ghosal and Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu lost to opponents from arch-rivals Pakistan in the individual men’s semifinals.
Top seed Ghosal was out of sorts in his 4-11, 5-11, 12-10, 5-11 loss to Farhan Zaman while Sandhu did a shade better before conceding the match in the fourth game in favour of his rival second seed Nasir Iqbal, citing a right hamstring injury. Sandhu was trailing at 7-11, 14-12, 7-11, 6-6 when he called injury time out in an ill-tempered match.
In the women’s event, however, ace player and top seed Joshna Chinappa easily defeated her Pakistani rival Sadia Gul 11-9, 11-7, 11-5 in the semifinals to set up the summit clash on Monday against another player of the western neighbours.
India win gold in TT too
Shillong: India clinched two gold medals in the men’s and women’s table tennis team events with easy wins over Sri lanka and Pakistan here on Sunday.
This was the table tennis men’s and women’s teams 12th successive gold medal wins from as many editions of the Games.
lanky lankan Udaya Ranasinghe gave national champion Anthony Amalraj some trouble before the India registered a 11-9, 13-11, 6-11, 11-8 win to give them a 1-0 lead.
Dishing out powerful service, G Sathiyan stormed past Rohan Sirisena 11-3 11-3 11-3 to double the lead.
Sanil Shetty was down 8-11 in the first game but the southpaw overcame strongly to win 11-3, 11-7 to snatch a 2-1 lead. The fourth set went down the wire as both were locked 11-11 before Shetty settled the issue 13-11.
The women’s team earlier opened the tally for India when they outplayed Pakistan 3-0 en route to their 12th successive team gold medal in the competition.
Reigning national champion Manika defeated Raheela Kashif 11-2, 11-6, 11-6 in the first rubber. Mouma Das had little difficulty against Shabnam Bilal to take the tie 11-7, 11-4, 11-4. K Shamini clinched the issue in the third rubber when she swept aside Ayesha Ansari 11-3, 11-3, 11-7.