Pak shoot down India’s golden chance

With just one more event to go for closure of the competition, India has grabbed a rich haul of 24 gold medals and seven each of silver and bronze medals. Shweta showed consistency in scoring 381 out of possible 400 eclipsing the old mark of Kunti Malik of India (372 set in Chennai in 1995) and the silver medallist Anu Raj, who shot a 375 bettered the mark. Sri Lanka’s Hemantha (372) won the bronze medal.

Shweta showed further improvement in the individual final competition returning 477.5 points, which was better than Malik’s 466.7 set in Chennai in 1995. In the team event, Shweta, Anu and Anisa Sayyed totalled 1122 points. Thus, erasing the old mark of their compatriots, 1110 pts set in Kathamandu 1999.

In the skeet final (individual), the Indian trio of Baba Prithvi Rajender Singh Bedi (106), Amardeep Singh Rai (104) and Naveen Jindal (103) finished 5th, 6th and 7th, respectively, amongst nine contestants. Pakistan’s Muhammad Shafique (116) set a new mark erasing the old record of Sarvdeep Mann (Ind-112-Chennai 1995). Khurram Inam (115) and Ahmad Sultan won the medals.

Shuttlers complete sweep

The Indian shuttlers proved their regional supremacy once again, effecting a clean sweep of all the seven gold medals on offer along with the five silver in the individual category of the badminton tournament.

The concluding day of the badminton event looked like the final day of an Indian national championship as the summit clashes in all the five individual categories — men’s single, women’s single, men’s double, women’s double and mixed double — were reduced to an all-India affair.

National champion Chetan Anand added one more feather to his cap as he defeated top-ranked Indian Abhinn Shyam Gupta 15-8, 10-15, 15-13 in a closely fought encounter.

Anand made an impressive start to his campaign winning the opening game with relative ease but made some silly mistakes in the second to lose the initiative before regrouping himself to take the decider. Trupti Murgunde made the most of the absence of national champion Aparna Popat and overcame a strong challenge from experienced B R Meenakshi 9-11, 11-7, 13-10 to take the gold in women’s singles.

Murgunde, who took some time to settle against her seasoned opponent, looked down and out when she was trailing 1-8 to Meenakshi in the second game after losing the first but displayed some fine attacking skill to force her way back into the match.

The decider saw the pendulum oscilate from one side to other but the youngester kept her cool on important points to take the title. In the mixed doubles, the top-seeded pair of Jaseel P Ismail and Jwala Gutta had no difficulty in disposing of Markose Bristow and Manjusha Kanwar 15-6, 15-3.

Top women’s pair of Jwala Gutta and Shruti Kurien had an easy outing against Fatima Nazneen and Manjusha Kanwar 15-6, 15-3 to take the gold in doubles. In the men’s doubles final, Rupesh Kumar and Markose Bristow got the better of Jaseel Ismail and JBS Vidyadhar 15-8, 15-4 to complete the rout.

Richa wins four gold

Ace Indian swimmer Richa Mishra hogged the limeight winning four gold medals to underline her country’s supremacy in the pool in the ongoing SAF Games. Indian swimmers have stamped their authority with a rich haul of 26 golds, nine silvers and two bronze medals in the week long competitions. Richa Mishra’s rich haul of four gold medals from as many attempts, included three new marks. Sivaranjani followed Mishra to claim silver in all the races. Richa set new marks in 200m butterfly, 200m individual medley and 800m freestyle events.