By Indraneel Ghosh
India has added a few more medals to its tally at the twenty-first Commonwealth Games, courtesy of a brilliant performance by the Indian shooting contingent. The flow of medals has continued at Gold Coast from the weightlifting team as the shooters began with a bang. The shooting contingent lived up to the expectations, delivering multiple medals.
The highlights of the day
The Indian weightlifters continued their medal rush with Punam Yadav winning gold in the women’s 69kg weightlifting category. The Indian weightlifter, who had earlier won bronze at the 2014 Glasgow Games, upped her game for this one. She won the event with a combined lift of 222kg (100kg+122kg). In the men’s 94 kg category, Vikash Thakur won the bronze medal, registering a total of 351 kg, which included a 159 kg in snatch and 192 kg in clean and jerk.
In boxing, CWG veteran MC Mary Kom progressed to the semi-final of the women’s 45-48 kg category. India can now expect a medal from her. In the men’s middleweight category Vikas Krishnan entered the quarterfinals. In badminton, Saina Nehwal was at her ruthless best for the mixed team event as India entered the finals. It was sweet revenge for India who defeated Singapore, a team which had denied them a bronze at the 2014 Glasgow CWG. Tejinder Singh in the shot put progressed to the finals. India can expect a medal from him as well. However, the most astonishing development was that Sajan Prakash entered the men’s 100m butterfly final, a sport which has been dominated by Australia so far.
The teenage prodigy
Without a doubt, the highlight of the day was the teenage shooting prodigy, Manu Bhaker, who won a gold at the event. At 16, she broke a Commonwealth Games record, making a mockery of the older and experienced shooters, firing a total of 240.9. Her calmness and concentration were nerves wrecking to watch. In just two years, Bhaker has made her mark in India’s list of firsts. At the women’s 10m air pistol event at the ISSF World Cup earlier this year, she became the youngest Indian shooter to win a gold. Hailing from Haryana, Bhaker had earlier tried her hand at other sports like martial arts and boxing before settling for shooting. Within a short span of time, she established her presence by defeating the experienced Heena Sidhu at the 61st National Shooting Championship, a tournament where she won nine golds over two days. She has the potential of becoming one of the greatest Indian shooters of all times and would be a force to reckon with at the next Olympics.
Meanwhile, Heena Sindhu also claimed silver at the same event. Their wins were highly contrasting. As Manu Bhaker made a mockery of the other contestant, Heena Sandhu didn’t have it so easy. She bounced back in style from elimination zone early in her second round to claim the silver. The third place was bagged by the Australian contender Elene Galiabovitch. In the men’s match-ups, Ravi Kumar shot a total of 244.1 to bag a bronze medal in men’s category. He finished behind Australia’s Dane Sampson (245) and Bangladesh’s Abdullah Hel Baki (244.7). However, medal prospect Deepak Kumar was eliminated from the final
Table tennis team creates history
To round up a rather good day, Manika Batra created history by winning gold at the singles event. She first upset World number four and Olympic medallist Feng Tianwei and then brushed aside Yihan Zhou to engineer a sensational win over Singapore. It was the mother of all upsets as Singapore team had never lost in the Commonwealth Games since the induction of Table Tennis way back in 2002.
All in all, it was a rather eventful day for the Indian contingent at Gold Coast as they continued a march towards the top, significantly increasing their medal tally. Several records were broken by the teams, as they created history and proved that India was a force to reckon with in the Common Wealth Games. However, they are still quite behind Australia, who have built a massive lead over others given their dominance in the pool. As of now, India is positioned at the fourth spot (behind Australia, England and Canada), with a tally of seven golds, two silvers and three bronzes.
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