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The Commonwealth Games is set to be held at Gold Coast, Australia from April 4th - 15th, 2018. It is of one of the major events apart from Asian Games and Olympics. Winning a medal at any of these events has been considered a huge achievement for athletes hailing from India.
Winning a gold medal at these mega events is always a difficult task even for experienced campaigners, but there is a whole bunch of youngsters coming through the ranks in various events, capable of producing excellent performances.
So we take a look at some of them who can script history by winning gold in their first appearance at the Commonwealth Games.
#1 Neeraj Chopra (Javelin Throw)
Neeraj came into the limelight when he broke the junior world record in 2016. He failed to make the cut for the Olympics because of the cut off date, then he disappointed again in the World Championship failing to make the cut to the finals.
But he has shown his potential by winning Gold at the Asian Championship and South Asian Games in 2017. The Commonwealth Games comes at the right time for him as he just came back from a three-month stint in Germany.
He looked in fine rhythm during the trials at Patiala and it looks like no can stand between him and the gold medal at Gold Coast as his season best (85.94 m) is way better than his fellow competitors.
#2 Sathiyan Gnanasekaran (Table Tennis)
The lad from Tamil Nadu has made quite an impact in the international circuit in the past few months. He became the highest ranked Indian, surpassing Achanta Sharath Kamal, to be ranked at World No. 49 in the ITTF Rankings in 2018.
He even defeated the 27th-ranked Yuya Oshima of Japan in the recently-concluded Qatar Open. Though it will be tough for him to win gold in singles as there will be few good players such as Gao Ning from Singapore and Aruna Quadri from Nigeria, he has got a great chance to win the top prize either in the team event or in the doubles.
As the Indians are strong contenders in the team event with four Indians in World Top-100. Along with Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan creating quite an impact on the doubles circuit, as well, recently winning bronze at the Belgium Open.
#3 Tejaswin Shankar (High Jump)
He came into the limelight when he broke the national record as a schoolboy. Ever since moving to the US for his college studies, Shankar has had no looking back as the amount of exposure and the level of competition in the US college circuit has helped him improve and reach even greater heights as he broke the national record again during Federation Cup, which acted as the trials for the CWG. His jump of 2.28 m is the joint season best in the world in 2018, and if everything goes according to plan, this 19-year-old from New Delhi might as well end up with a gold medal in Gold Coast.
#4 Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy (Badminton - Men's Doubles)
Badminton has grown leaps and bounds ever since Saina Nehwal won the bronze at the London Olympics. The Indians are now doing very well in men's and women's singles categories ever since. However, doubles has been one area where Indian shuttlers have been struggling, apart from Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa.
But this young pair is slowly on the rise and are ranked at 31 in the BWF rankings at end of 2107. Last week, they broke into the top 20 to be ranked at World No.20. The pair will be the second highest ranked duo in this year's CWG and will bank on their recent form at the All England Championships, where they lost narrowly to the world no.1 pair after taking it to a match point.
#5 Manu Bhaker (Shooting)
The youngest of the lot, the 16-year-old from Haryana came into the spotlight when she bettered Heena Sindhu's record in the finals of the National Games in 2017 held in Kerala to win the gold medal. She currently is in red-hot form, having bagged 2 gold medals in the recently concluded ISSF World Shooting Championship.
She showed maturity and calmness beyond her age, whenshe clinched the Gold in 10 m Air Pistol at the Championship with her last shot. The biggest threat for Manu at the Games would be her compatriot Heena Sindhu but having already defeated her in previous competitions, Bhaker will be confident of bringing home a gold medal from her maiden appearance at the games.
