Press Trust of India
Guwahati, Feb 8: India’s might found no challenge in the 12th South Asian Games with the country’s archers, wrestlers and weightlifters clinching a majority of gold medals to ensure a third successive day of supremacy for the host country here Monday.
While compound archers scooped all the five gold medals on offer, wrestlers also annihilated competition to grab five yellow metals out of six.
Courtesy the strong showing by them, India continued to top the medals tally with a count of 70, which includes 46 gold, 18 silver and six bronze medals. Sri Lanka held on to the second spot with 59 medals (11 gold, 25 silver and 23 bronze). Pakistan were a distant third in the tally with 29 medals (four gold, 11 silver and 14 bronze) in their kitty.
The golden run began early for India in Shillong with compound archers grabbing all the five gold medals on offer along with two silver medals to rule the roost.
The compound trio of Purvasha Shende, Jyoti Vennam and Lily Chanu Paonam started the gold rush for India downing their opponents from Bangladesh 228-217 in the morning session. Purvasha went on to win a hat-trick of gold medals as she also emerged the individual champion and bagged her third in mixed pair event with Asian Games team gold and individual silver medallist Abhishek Verma.
On the wrestling mat in Guwahati, the host grapplers simply destroyed their opponents to finish with 14 gold medals out of a total 16 on offer.
Shilpi Sheoran began the gold count for India as she beat Farzana Sharmin of Bangladesh in the women’s 63kg final bout. Rajani and Nikki made it an all-gold affair for Indian women in the Games by defeating Bangladesh’s Shirin Sultana and W Weerasingh of Sri Lanka, respectively in the 69kg and 75kg categories.
Among men, Mausam Khatri and Pardeep won a gold each in 97kg and 74kg respectively, while Mandeep had to settle for a silver as he lost to Pakistan’s Zaman Avwar in the 125kg final.
There was no stopping the weightlifters either as India grabbed all four gold medals on offer Monday in yet another overwhelmingly dominating performance.
Victor Abilash Christopher (men’s 105kg), Pradeep (men’s 94kg), Vikas Thakur (men’s 85kg) and Kavita Devi (women’s 75kg) won a gold each.
The cyclists also brushed aside competition for a third day on the trot to win both the gold medals. The Indian teams won the women’s 40km time trial and men’s 70km time trial events to take their medal count to five gold, three silver and one bronze.
However, after two days of domination in the pool, India shared the spoils with Sri Lanka in the swimming competition.
Sandeep Sejwal, who has already won two gold medals added another to his kitty, by winning the 50m breaststroke for men with a new Games record of 28.79 seconds. V Malavika won the women’s 800m freestyle event while PS Madhu bagged the third gold for India by winning the 100m backstroke for men.
