Anil Kumar emerges fastest

The gap between Kerala and Manipur medals tally is narrowing. Kerala has 32 gold and the hosts 24. In swimming, Nisha continued to make waves and will be a strong contender for the Sportswoman of the Games,’ as she emulated her last Games’ feat of nine gold.

Three more new National games records have been set in the athletic events. The highlight of the day was, however, Anil Kumar who pipped National holder Amit Khanna in 100 m Men’s sprint while in the women’s section V Jayalaxmi of Tamil Nadu got the gold, but well below the marks set by PT Usha 14 years ago in the New Delhi.

In the shooting events, Jaspal Rana got his fourth gold when he set another National Gamesrecord in the air pistol event scoring 676.3 points even as sister Sushma got the sports pistol gold scoring 659.5 points which happens to be a new Games record too.

Results: Men: 100m: 1 Anil Kumar (Ser) 10.58s, 2 Amit Khanna (Del) 10.73s, 3 Arup Chaterjee (WB) 10.79s; 4x400m: 1 Kerala 3:13.02s, 2 Punjab 3:13.14s, 3 TN 3:15.63s; Hammer: 1 P Tiwari (UP) 65.61m, 2 N Chowdhary (Ser) 60.83m, 3 SK Tomar (Bih) 58.16m; Javelin: 1 Bikramjit (Man) 70.30m, 2 R Dubey (Mah) 67.90m, 3 Naval (Del) 67.13m; 20 km walk: 1 Sita Ram (Ser) 1:33.16s, 2 Deband (Man) 1:33.16s, 3 Amrik Singh (Ser) 1:33.24s.

Women: 100m: 1 V Jayalaxmi (TN) 11.90s, V Pandeeswari (TN) 12.02s, 3 S Dey (WB) 12.12s; 5,000m: 1 Sunita Ran (Pun) 16:05.30s, 2 M A Molly (Kar) 17:18.24s, 3 Vijaya Sonawane (Mah) 18:08.06s; 4x400m: 1 TN 3:42.63s, 2 Delhi 3:45.75s; High jump: 1 Bobby Aloysius (Ker) 1.74m, 2 S Jayanthi (TN) 1.71m, 3 B Deshmukh (WB) 1.71m; Discus: 1 Neelam Singh (Pun) 51.50m, 2 Swanarjeet Kaur (Pun) 49.74m, 3 Seroj Kumar (Del) 47.19m;Heptathlon: 1 Soma Biswas (WB) 5165 pts, 2 JJ Shobha (AP).

Maharashtra prevail

Spirited Maharashtra upset Delhi and Tamil Nadu to clinch both the men’s and women’s doubles tennis gold. In the men’s doubles final, Maharashtra’s Asif Ismail and Gaurav Natekar baffled Delhi’s duo Vishal Uppal and Vijay Khanna in straight sets 6-2, 6-1.

In the women’s doubles final, second seed Janaki Krishnamurthy and Radhika Tulpule of Maharashtra downed top-seed pair of Rushmi Chakravorty and Sumitra Rao of Tamil Nadu 6-0, 4-6, 6-4 to win the gold. Tamil Nadu which clinched the men’s team title won the second gold earlier in the day when top-seed Rushmi Chakravorty annexed the women’s single title beating second seed Janaki Krishnamurthy of Maharashtra in straight sets 6-2, 7-5.

Punjab, Kerala score

National champions Punjab men and defending champion Kerala women began their campaign volleyball competition in the opening league ties at the Khuman Lampak Indoor Stadium today.

While Punjab, the silvermedal winner of the last National Games, overpowered Himachal Pradesh 25-19, 25-10, 25-14 in 50 minutes. In a pool A match, Kerala girls had some anxious moments before they overcame Maharashtra 25-22, 25-17, 28-26.