Anjali (Ved Pathak) Bhagwat and Jaspal Rana reigned supreme at the shooting ranges by securing their fourth and third gold medals respectively as India added six more medals to their kitty to maintain their fourth position on the medals table in the 17th Commonwealth Games here today.Anjali and Rana continued their dominance with gold-winning efforts while their teammate Raj Kumari bagged silver to take India’s overall tally to 22 gold, 21 silver and 14 bronze medals on a relatively lean day which saw the premature exit of star shuttler Pullela Gopi Chand.Having already recorded their best-ever haul of 57 medals in any international event outside the sub-continent, the Indians were expected to grab a few more medals in the two remaining days of competitions.The 31-year-old Anjali was again the star performer by taking the honour in the women’s 50m rifle three position with an aggregate of 678 points on a day which saw the Indian shooters taking part in just three of the six events.Rana’s third gold: Rana claimed his third gold medal in the competitions by logging 574 points in the men’s 25m standard pistol taking the shooting tally to 12 gold, seven silver and two bronze medals. Raj Kumari aggregated 662.2 points to win silver in the women’s 50m rifle 3 position while Neelam Sethi Laxmi won three silvers to the swelling kitty with her performance in the women’s upto 69 kg category weightlifting category.Gopi upset: There was a major surprise in store for the Indians as ace shuttler Gopi Chand suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of Malaysian Choong Hann Wong in the quarter-finals. In a rather tame surrender, an off-colour Gopi Chand, silver medallist at the previous Commonwealth Games at Kuala Lumpur, committed a number of unforced errors and lost 1-7, 1-7, 4-7.Popat advances: Top woman shutler Aparna Popat, however, kept her medal hopes alive with a facile 7-2, 7-0, 7-0 victory over Canada’s Denyse Julien to romp into the semi-finals in the women’s singles section.The Indian paddlers also failed to make much of an impact with the only surviving pair of Chetan Baboor and S Raman losing to the English pair of Andrew Baggaly and Gareth Herbert 11-5, 11-13, 9-11, 13-11, 8-11 in a closely contested men’s doubles semi-finals. Baboor and Raman have, however, assured themselves of bronze medal.Indian wrestlers began their campaign on a promising note with three grapplers progressing to the second round.Krishnan Kumar set the tempo for the matmen by prevailing over Shaun Philip Williams of South Africa with a slender 4-3 margin in the 55 kg category.Anuj Kumar also kept himself on medal course by defeating Jules Kamden of Cameroon with a 10-2 verdict in the 84 kg category.In the 66 kg category, Ramesh Kumar got past his first round opponent without much fuss. He scored an emphatic 12-0 victory over Kates Ueresi of Solomon Island.Neelam Sethi wins three silver medalsNeelam Laxmi Sethi won three silver medals in the women’s 69kg category to ensure medals kept trickling in for India in the weightlifting event.Sethi’s three silver medals were the only ones to come for India today in an event that has yielded as many as ten gold, 12 silver and eight bronze medals so far.Sethi lifted 95kg in snatch and 110kg in clean and jerk for a total of 205, which gave her a silver medal in each of the three categories. The gold in the event was won by Madeline Yameehi of Cameroon who lifted a total of 230kg (snatch 100kg, clean and jerk 130kg). Sethi’s performance boosted India’s overall tally to 22 gold, 21 silver and 14 bronze medals.
