Published>Thu, Oct 07 10 08:07 PM
India scooped up a bagful of three gold and as many silver and bronze medals to firmly remain in second spot behind leaders Australia in the Commonwealth Games on Thursday.
The three gold medals were garnered by the 25m and 10m men pistoliers with Gurpreet Singh being the common factor in both these pairs while Geeta grabbed the first gold in women's wrestling.
Gurpreet joined hands with Vijay Kumar to rake in the gold medal in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (pairs) event before combining well with Omkar Singh to clinch the 10m air pistol (pairs) title to become a double gold winner.
The shooting gold medals provided by the men's pistol wielders took the country's overall gold tally from the Dr Karni Singh range to 14, showing how much the marksmen and women have contributed in keeping India's flag flying high.
Grappler Geeta trounced her rival Emily Bensted of Australia in the 55 kg category final. She entered the gold medal round by defeating Lovina Odohi Edward of Nigeria, but her teammate - 63kg grappler Suman Kundu - lost in the semi-finals.
Men's double trap shooting ace Ronjon Sondhi got a silver medal along with the men's archery compound team and women's 48kg freestyle grappler Nirmala Devi.
The three bronze medals came in archery (women's team compound event), 77kg weightlifter Sudhir Kumar and Ashish Kumar, in men's gymnastics (floor exercise).
The day's haul of eight medals boosted India's overall tally to 14-11-8 and on course to their pre-Games target of achieving the runner-up spot behind overwhelming favourites Australia.
Australia were way ahead of the rest with 27-16-14 while England lagged behind in third place (8-15-10).
India struck gold early on the fourth day when marksmen Vijay Kumar and Gurpreet Singh clinched the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (pairs) event before the men's and women's archery teams added to the medal tally with a silver and a bronze.
Kumar and Gurpreet together fired 1162 to bag the top prize in the pistol event ahead of Malaysia's Amir Hasan Hasli Izwan and Adzha Hafiz (1142) and Australian bronze medal winning duo of Bruce Quick and David Chapman (1125).
The Indian men's compound team lost to England by two points (229-231) in the gold medal-deciding match while the women defeated Malaysia by four points (223-219) in the corresponding event's bronze play-off tie. These were the first two medals for the country from the archery range.
The other two bronze medals were claimed by men's 77kg weightlifter Sudhir Kumar and gymnast Ashish Kumar, an unexpected one, in the floor exercise.
The Indian men's archery outfit gave a hard time to their English rivals before losing narrowly in the final.
The trio of Bheigyabati Chanu, Jhano Hansdah and Gagandeep won the bronze in the women's compound archery team event beating Malaysia 223-219 in a thrilling third place play-off tie that went to the wire.
Needing five points to clinch the bronze with one arrow left, Indians won the thrilling clash between the two Asian nations Hansdah showed nerves of steel to calmly fire an 8-pointer to haul in the country's first medal in the bow and arrow competition.
The Indians went out of contention for the gold by losing to Canada in the semi-finals while Malaysia failed to make the grade after losing to England in the other semi-final.
But world champion Tejaswini Sawant and Lajja Gauswami fell by the wayside in the 50m rifle 3 position singles.
"We are happy with our performance. All of us held our nerves in pressure situation to clinch the bronze," Chanu said after clinching the team bronze.
Indian challenge continued to remain strong in table tennis, tennis and badminton.
The women's team made it to the final of the table tennis championship by defeating England in the semi finals.
Men's tennis top seed Somdev Devvarman inched closer to a medal in the singles with a 6-3 6-4 win over sixth seed Rubin Statham of New Zealand.
Ace Indian shuttlers Chetan Anand and Saina Nehwal notched up contrasting wins as India thrashed Canada 3-0 to set up a semifinal clash with England in the mixed badminton team event.
Mixed doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and V Diju just took 19 minutes to make short work of NG Toby and Gao Grace 21-8 21-12 in the first match of the day to give India a 1-0 lead.
Saina then sealed the issue in India's favour with a 21-16 21-13 victory over her one-time doubles partner Anna Rice in the women's singles.
But glitches continued to dog the Games with the organisers confronted with the problem of several swimmers, mostly from the England contingent, complaining of pool-related sickness.
With reports emerging that the Games swimming pool may be contaminated, leading to an increase of athletes in the sick bay, the organisers were Thursday left to do some emergency fire-fighting at the customary morning press conference.
Commonwealth Games Federation chief Michael Fennell and Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi promised an inquiry and a solution by Thursday.
"We are ensuring that the water quality is tested. We don't have specific reports about illnes. We must find this out immediately. we have to deal with it. It needs some urgency," he said, while responding to a query whether they would postpone the day's finals.
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