Press Trust of India
Guwahati, Feb 14: Olympics-bound shooter Chain Singh signed off with an astonishing collection of six gold medals as the consistently dominant Indian contingent added to the medal heap and stayed on top in the overall standings of the 12th South Asian Games here Sunday.
For the ninth successive day of competitions, India stood atop the medals table with 275 overall (160 gold, 88 silver and 21 bronze), way ahead of second-placed Sri Lanka 167 (25, 56, 85). Pakistan were at third with 81 medals (nine, 27, 45).
Shooters were once again the star performers for the country with Chain Singh stealing the thunder from the Olympic bronze-medallist Gagan Narang.
There were only two gold medals on offer at the shooting range Sunday and the hosts picked up both to continue their sweep in the Games.
India also easily took the gold in the team event of men’s 50m rifle 3 positions while the 26-year-old Chain shot 453.30 points to win the individual gold in the event, once again upstaging Gagan, who took the silver with a score of 450.30 points. Sri Lanka’s SMM Samarkoon got the bronze.
Chain had earlier won the individual gold in 50m rifle prone and 10m air rifle. The 26-year-old completed a remarkable sweep of six gold medals helping India win all the three team events he took part in.
The Indian trio of Chain, Narang and Surendra Singh Rathod bagged the gold in the team event with a total score of 3490 points, while Sri Lanka (3431) and Bangladesh (3398) took the silver and bronze respectively.
The gold rush continued in triathlon as well with India bagging the top spot in the mixed relay team event. The Indian team of Pallavi Retiwala, Dilip Kumar, Thoudam Sarojini Devi and Dhiraj Sawant won the gold with a combined timing of 1:24:31 seconds on the final day of triathlon competitions at the Sarusajai Sports Complex here.
Sunday’s gold was the second for Dilip and Pallavi as they had won a yellow metal each in the men’s and women’s individual events Saturday.
In Shillong, the hosts India managed one gold, two silver and a bronze in taekwondo. Purva Dixit beat Nepal’s YK Chaulagain in the women’s 49kg category to win the solitary gold medal in the event where Afghanistan led the
medals tally.
Gajendra Parihar went down to Afghanistan’s Mahmood Haidari in the men’s 58kg final to settle for a silver medal. India bagged a second silver of the day in men’s 74kg after Manu George was defeated by another Afghan M Sharif Muradi for the gold medal in a closely-fought encounter.
