It was yet another day when Indian athletes dominated proceedings at the 12th edition of the South Asian Games, eventually ending with a whopping 114 Golds, 61 Silvers and 16 Bronze to comfortably finish on top of the medal standings.
Here
Athletics
India was once again among the medals in athletics. Ajay Kumar Saroj won the bronze in the Men’s 800m while Suresh Kumar won the Gold in Men’s 10000m. India won the silver and the bronze respectively in both the Women’s and Men’s 4x100m Relay events.
MR Poovamma won the Gold in the 400m event with a timing of 54.1 seconds as did MayookhaJhony, who triumphed in the Women's Triple Jump. It was a 1-2 finish for the hosts in the Men’s Discus Throw with Arjun and Kripal Singh winning the Gold and Silver respectively.
Sonu Saini won the silver for India in the Men’s Pole Vault event while Sahana Kumari, Ankit Sharma and Neeraj Chopra won the Gold in the Women’s High Jump, Men’s Long Jump and Men;s Javelin Throw respectively. Prem Kumar won the Silver in the second of the three above events.
Badminton
It was perhaps the most memorable day in the career of Ruthvika Gadde on Wednesday as she defeated World No.12 PV Sindhu in straight games 21-11 22-20 to win the Women’s Singles Gold.
In a hard-fought final, Kidambi Srikanth prevailed over HS Prannoy in a hard-fought match to win the Gold in three games 11-21 21-14 21-6.
Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa also won the Gold, beating Sikki Reddy and K Maneesha in straight games. However, it didn't prove to be the case for the latter in the Mixed Doubles as she had to settle for silver along with Manu Attri, losing to Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Siki Reddy 29-30 17-21.
Tennis
Ankita Raina defeated Prerna Bhambri in the Gold medal match in straight sets 6-1 6-0 to take home the coveted prize. Saketh Myneni also cane through his Gold medal match with little difficulty as he beat Aisam Ul-Haq Qureshi 6-2 6-1 to win the top prize.
India had a field day in the Doubles as well, as Raina partnered Divij Sharan to win the Mixed Doubles gold in straight sets 6-2 7-6. Ramanathan won the Gold in the Men’s Doubles along with Prashanth Vijay. S 6-3 6-4, defeating the duo of Sharan and Sanam Singh.
Table Tennis
Anthony Amalraj won the Gold in the Men’s Singles but not in the manner that he would have liked. Sathiyan Gnanasekaran had to withdraw midway through the game because of injury with the score reading 2-1 in the former’s favour.
However, it wasn't all gloom and doom for Sathiyan, as prior to bowing out in disappointing fashion, he partnered Devesh Karia to win the Men’s Doubles Gold, beating Amalraj and Sanil Shetty 3-0.
The Women’s Gold medal match saw an absolutely thrilling contest between Manik Batra and Mouma Das as the match went right down to the wire and it was eventually the experienced Das who prevailed 4-3.
Batra won the Gold in the Women’s Doubles, partnering Pooja Sahasrabuddhe beating Das and Shamini Kumaresan 3-0.
She also won the Gold in the Mixed Doubles partnering Amalraj to beat Sathiyan and Das 3-2.
Squash
After Joshna Chinappa clinched the Gold in the Women’s Individual event, India won the top prize in the Men’s team event as well, as they beat arch-rivals Pakistan 2-1 with victories from Saurav Ghosal and Kush Kumar clinching the tie for the hosts.
It was the same case in the Women’s category as well as Chinappa and Sunanya Kuruvilla won their matches to capture the Gold in both events.
Shooting
On the opening day of the shooting event, India won the Gold in the Men’s 50m Pistol with Omkar Singh, Prakash PN and Om Prakash combining excellently to fire 1622. Apurvi Chandela won the Gold in both the Individual and the Team event of the 10m Air Rifle.
Om Prakash also won the silver for India in the 50m Pistol missing the Gold by 0.3.
Swimming
Like in the previous three days, India once again had a good time in the pool on Tuesday. The Women’s 4x100m Medley team won the Gold with a time of 4:30:91 as did the male counterparts with a time of 3:49:78.
Jyotsana Pansare and Avantika Chavan won the Gold and Silver in the Women’s 50m Butterfly Stroke while Veerdhawal Khade and Anshul Kothari clinched the top 2 prizes in the Men’s event.
Shivani Kataria won the bronze in the Women’s 100m Free Style while Shraddha Sudhir and Sanu Debnath won the Gold and the Silver respectively in the Women’s and Men’s 200m Individual Medley.
Wushu
In the Women’s Taijiquan and Taijiquan All-Round event, Sanatombi Chanu won the Gold with a score of 18.62 and in the Men’s event, it was Gyandash Singh won took the top prize with a score of 18.53.
In the Men’s Taolu Daoshu and Gunshu event, it was Chirag Sharma who won the Gold with a score of 18.42.
