South Asian Games: Clean sweep by shooters, boxers off to flyer

Devendro Singh (left) in action against Bhutan’s Tashi Wangdu in their 49kg category quarter-final bout in Shillong on Saturday. Devendro won 3-0.

India rolled on unchecked as the star-studded boxing squad joined the shooters in what is turning out to be an outing of unprecedented dominance by the host country at the 12th South Asian Games here on Saturday.

Indian shooters grabbed all six gold medals on offer while triathletes joined the party by winning both golds as the hosts swept aside the challenge from other countries.

In the ring, star boxers Devendro Singh and Shiva Thapa bludgeoned their way to convincing wins over their hapless opponents, Tashi Wangdi of Bhutan, and Nepal’s Shrestha Dinesh, respectively. Asian gold medallist Vikas Krishnan also tasted success on the first day of the event.

India led with 265 medals (155 gold, 84 silver and 26 bronze), way ahead of second placed Sri Lanka 161 (25, 55, 81). Pakistan were third with 79 medals (8, 26. 45).

In the capital city of Assam, there were just eight medal events and the Indians won all of them — six by shooters and two by triathletes.

Omkar Singh (men’s 10m air pistol), Rahi Sarnobat (women’s 25m pistol) and Anjum Moudgil (women’s 50m rifle 3 positions) grabbed a gold each while the hosts also bagged the top spot in all the three team events here.

The domination in shooting was such that in the three individual events of the day, India swept all the medals in two while winning a gold and a bronze in the third.

Pakistan’s Kaleemullah (men’s 10m air pistol) was the lone non-Indian to get a medal on the day in shooting, bagging a silver.

With Saturday’s show, the star-studded Indian shooting team, which has six Rio Olympics bound shooters, has taken their tally to 18 gold, eight silver and eight bronze in four days. Two days are left in the competition. The men’s and women’s football teams also qualified for their respective finals with comprehensive wins over their counterparts from Bangladesh. While the men recorded an easy 3-0 result, the women thrashed their opponents 5-1.

In triathlon event, Dilip Kumar grabbed gold in the individual men’s event while Pallavi Retiwala took the yellow metal in women’s individual event.