English August for India’s gold miners

Rai lifted a total of 317.5 (snatch 142.4 kg, clean and jerk 175 kg) to get the better of Dave Morgan of Wales who had to be content with collecting three silver medals.

The Indian medal collection had received a huge boost with the seasoned N Kunjarani Devi and Sanamacha Chanu making a clean sweep of all the three gold medals in the women’s 48 kg and 53 kg categories respectively in the first two days of competitions.

Anjali clinches third gold

The strong Indian shooters continued their golden run as Anjali (Ved Pathak) Bhagwat and Rajyavardhan Singh added two more yellow metal to the growing kitty. Anjali took the honours in the women’s 10m air rifle event while scooped a gold in the men’s double trap to continue India’s dominance in the shooting ranges.

Displaying superb skill and concentration, Anjali bagged her third gold medal in the competitions to take India’s shooting tally to 10 gold, five silver and two bronze medals. Anjali aggregated 500.8 points to pip compatriot Suma Shirur by just 0.8 points. Shirur had to be content with the silver medal while England’s Louise Minett took home the bronze with a total of 494.8 points.

Samaresh Jung brought more cheer by picking up a silver in the men’s 50m pistol. Jung, who had partnered Jaspal Rana to win a gold on the first day of the shooting competitions, aggregated 652.8 points.

Paddlers stumble

Barring the duo of S Raman and Mantu Ghosh, all the other Indian pairs fell by the wayside in the second round of the table tennis mixed doubles. Raman and Mantu defeated the Lesotho pair of Monyooe Taole and Boteng Ntisane 11-6, 11-2, 11-2 to progress to the second round. The fancied pair of Chetan Baboor and NR Indu suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of the English duo of Andrew Baggaley and Goergina Walker in straight sets 10-12, 7-11, 5-11.

Soumyadeep Roy and Mouma Das also bit the dust in the second round going down to the Singapore pair of Tai Yong Zhang and Jun Hong Jing 8-1, 4-11, 5-11 while Sourav Chakraborty and Poulomi Ghatak also saw their challenge put to an end by another Singaporean team Xiao Li Cai and Xue Ling Zhang 8-11, 3-11, 7-11.

However, the women paddlers put up a disciplined performance in the doubles event with two teams cruising into the quarter finals. Mantu Ghosh and NR Indu had to struggle a little bit before overwhelming the Wales pair of Betham Daunton and Natasha Lake with a hard-fought 3-2 margin.

Shuttlers win doubles

Meanwhile, Indian shuttlers moved to the next round in the doubles. In the day’s only match featuring India in the men’s doubles event, Valiyaveetil Diju and Thomas Sanave cruised to the third round with a comprehensive 3-0 victory over Neil Cottrill and Liam Ingram of Wales. The Indian pair won 7-3, 7-2, 7-5.

In the women’s doubles’ event, Neelima Choudhary and Deepti Choudhary played superbly to beat the Seychells pair of Juliette Ah-Wan and Katherina Paulin 7-2, 7-0, 6-8, 7-0.