Press Trust of India
Guwahati, Feb 6: It was gold rush for India on the opening day of the South Asian Games with the country’s wrestlers, swimmers and weightlifters showing their regional dominance by making a near clean sweep of top honours here Saturday.
India clinched 14 gold, and five silver medals on a highly productive day to top the medals tally with an overall count of 19. Sri Lanka, despite having a higher overall medal count of 21, occupied the second spot in the table owing to a lesser tally of gold medals (4). Wrestlers were the stars for India, grabbing as many as five gold medals followed by the swimmers who clinched four gold and three silver medals.
The weightlifters added three gold medals to the tally after the cyclists had opened India’s account with two gold and an equal number of silver medals in the morning. Three women and two male grapplers finished on top of the podium as the proceedings went on expected lines.
Rajneesh and Ravinder bagged the gold in men’s 65kg and 57kg divisions respectively. In women’s wrestling, Priyanka Singh claimed the top position in 48kg, while Manisha won the gold in 60kg and Archana Tomar clinched the yellow metal in 55kg categories.
The Indians created quite a splash in the pool as well picking up three of their four gold medals by clocking record times. Asian Games bronze-medallist Sandeep Sejwal (men’s 200m breaststroke), Shivani Kataria (women’s 200m freestyle) and the women’s 100m freestyle relay team set new Games record timings on their way to gold while Damini Gowda added another yellow metal in women’s 100m butterfly.
India established early dominance in the weightlifting competition as well by notching up three gold medals. Saikhom Mirabai Chanu, Harshdeep Kaur and Gururaja bagged the yellow metals for India.
India ruled the the roost on the wrestling mat as they ran away with all the five gold medals. Priyanka Singh (women’s 48kg freestyle), Archana Tomar (women’s 55kg freestyle), Manisha (women’s 60kg freestyle), Ravindra (men’s 57kg freestyle) and Rajneesh (men’s 65kg freestyle) won gold with ease.
In men’s football, India made a disappointing start to their campaign as they suffered a solitary goal loss to Sri Lanka. MCM Rinas scored the only goal of the match.
In squash, top Indian players Sourav Ghosal, Harinderpal Singh and Joshana Chinappa easily made it to the semifinals while Sunayna Kuruvilla bowed out of the competition in the individual events. Ghosal hardly broke a sweat as he beat Mohd Shumon of Bangladesh 11-5, 11-1, 11-3 in the quarterfinals while Harinderpal also sent packing Md. Shamil Wakeel of Sri Lanka 11-3, 11-8, 11-3 to enter the semifinals.
In women’s individual event, Joshana toyed with Krishna Thapa of Nepal 11-6, 11-4, 11-4 to storm into the semifinals. However, Sunayna Kuruvilla failed to make it to the semifianls after losing to Mihilya Methsarani of Sri Lanka 11-6, 9-11 11-4, 5-11, 10-12. In volleyball, Indian men’s team spanked Nepal 3-0 (25-15, 25-16, 25-16), while in kho-kho, Indian men’s team beat Nepal 23-21 and the women’s side defeated Sri Lanka 16-14.