South Asian Games: Gold rush as Kavita books Rio slot

Nitendra Singh Rawat is followed by Cooray Anuradha Indrajith of Sri Lanka during the men’s marathon at the South Asian Games in Guwahati on Friday. (Photo: PTI )

Long-distance runner Kavita Raut’s Olympic qualification was the icing on the cake on yet another impressive day for India with the hosts staying miles ahead of their rivals on Day Seven of the 12th South Asian Games here on Friday.

On the day, India increased their tally to 248 — including 146 gold, 79 silver and 23 bronze medals.

Following the hosts in a distant second position were Sri Lanka with 157 medals, including 25 gold, 53 silver and 79 bronze medals. Pakistan remained steady at the third spot with 73 medals (7 gold, 23 silver and 43 bronze).

It was the last day of competitions in athletics and Kavita made it special by qualifying for the Rio Olympics in the women’s marathon

The 30-year-old easily clinched gold in 2 hours 38 minutes and 38 seconds to become the fourth Indian woman to have qualified for the Rio Games marathon. The Rio qualification standard stands at 2:42:00. O.P. Jaisha, Lalita Babbar and Sudha Singh have already qualified for the event.

Sri Lanka’s N.G. Rajasekara (2:50:47.00) and B. Anuradhi (2:52:15.00) took silver and bronze respectively.

Nashik girl Raut is the lone athlete to have qualified for the Olympics from the 12th SAG.

Rio Olympics-bound athlete Nitender Singh Rawat took the men’s marathon gold in 2:15:18 seconds in a close finish. He won the race a mere second ahead of Indrajith Cooray of Sri Lanka, who has also qualified for Rio.

Cooray took silver in 2:15:19 seconds while another Indian Kheta Ram took bronze in 2 hours 21 minutes and 14 seconds.

A similar script unfolded in the shooting ranges with Chain Singh stealing the limelight with his second gold. The 26-year-old Chain upstaged senior team-mate Gagan Narang to win the men’s 10m air rifle event with a total score of 204.6 to add to his 50m rifle prone gold.

Gagan, who took bronze in this event at the 2012 London Olympics, had to be content with a bronze. Mohammad Chowdh-ury of Bangladesh bagged silver (203.6).

Chain, Narang and Imran Khan clinched the gold in the team event with a total score of 1863.4, while Bangladesh (1845.8) and Sri Lanka (1827.2) took silver and bronze respectively.

In the men’s individual 20m standard pistol event, India ran away with all the medals on offer.

Neeraj Kumar (569) clinched the gold while compatriots Gurpreet Singh (566) and Mahender Singh (563) took the silver and bronze respectively.

Neeraj, Gurpreet and Mahender then won the team gold with a total score of 1698, while Pakistan (1663) and Sri Lanka (1603) took the silver and bronze respectively.

In men’s hockey, Pakistan clinched the gold defeating an inexperienced Indian team 1-0 in a well-fought final.