New Delhi, October 07 India’s medals tally at the Commonwealth Games mounted to 33 as the shooters continued to shine and women archers and wrestlers contributed their share and a gymnast won the first-ever Games medal Thursday.
The women’s table tennis team entered the maiden final at the Games, but there was much heartbreak after the men’s hockey side was decimated 2-5 by Australia, behind whom India continued to be second in the medal count.
India’s shooters bagged two golds and a silver, women wrestlers their first medals on debut in the Games — a gold, a silver and a bronze — and archers, too, won their first Games medals, a silver and a bronze, taking the gold tally to 14 on the fourth day of the competition here Thursday.
Top-seeded Somdev Devvarman beat sixth ranked Rubin Statham of New Zealand 6-3, 6-4 to advance to the men’s singles tennis semifinals.
Second-seeded Sania Mirza moved into the women’s semifinals, beating eighth-seeded New Zealander Marina Erakovic 6-2, 6-3, but crashed out of the mixed doubles event pairing Leander Paes by going down to Scotland’s Jocelyn Rae and Colin Fleming 5-7, 4-6 in the quarterfinals.
India also moved into the semifinals of the badminton mixed team event, blanking Canada 3-0. They now meet England, who had beaten them for the silver at Melbourne four years ago.
Indian shooters Vijay Kumar and Gurpreet Singh brought the country its sixth gold from the range by winning the 25-metre rapid fire pistol pairs event with a new Commonwealth Games record here Thursday.
Kumar (587) and Singh (575) shot a cumulative total of 1,162 to win the yellow metal ahead of Malaysia and Australia at the Karni Singh Shooting Range.
The Indians broke the Games record of 1,134 by a huge margin. That was set by Vijay Kumar and Pemba Tamang at the 2006 Melbourne Games.
Indian shooters Omkar Singh and Gurpreet Singh won the gold in the men’s 10-metre air pistol pairs event while Ronjon Sodhi won the silver in the double trap shooting event.
But there was bad news for the hosts in the women’s 50-metre rifle three position contest as Tejaswani finished ninth. Only the top eight shooters qualified for the finals. Tejaswani’s compatriot Lajja Gauswami, who made it to the final, took the sixth place returning a score of 666.8 (570 in qualifying, 96.8 in final).
Indian women opened their gold account in freestyle wrestling, Geeta winning the 55kg gold, Nirmala Devi the 48 kg silver and Suman Kundu the 63 kg bronze.
The Indian men’s archery team of Ritul Chatterjee, Jignas Chittibomo and Chinna Raju Srither went down to England to settle for the silver in the compound event.
The match went down to the wire with England beating India 231-229 to win their second archery gold of the Games.
Earlier, the trio of Gagandeep Kaur, Jhano Hansdah and Bheigyabati Chanu bagged an unexpected bronze in the women’s compound team event, country’s first archery medal in the Games.
The hosts defeated Malaysia 223-219 in the bronze play-off at the Yamuna Sports complex here. Eventual silver medallist Canada beat India in the semifinals by a seven-point difference with the final scoreline reading 224-217. England won the gold.
Archery has returned to the Games after 28 years.
The Indian women’s table tennis team outclassed fancied England to reach their maiden final at the Commonwealth Games and assured themselves of a medal.
The Indians blanked the second seed England 3-0 in what turned out be a one-sided affair at a packed show court of the Yamuna Sports Complex.
On the flip side, World champions Australia scored an emphatic 5-2 win over India in a Pool A men’s hockey match at the overflowing Major Dhyan Chand Stadium.
India had no answer to Australia’s superior fitness and slick team work that was more pronounced in the second half when the reigning Commonwealth champions hammered three of their five goals in a 10-minute spell.
The victory, their second in a row, took Australia to six points while India remained on three from their 3-2 win against Malaysia on Tuesday.
–IANS