South Asian Games: Home archers, swimmers rule

The gold-medal winning team of Sajan Prakash (from left), Neil Contractor, Saurabh Sangvekar and Raj Bhanwadia pose after the men’s 4x200m freestyle swimming race in Guwahati on Tuesday. (Photo: PTI)

Plundered most of the gold on offer for a fourth successive day with swimmers, archers and track-and-field athletes ensuring that the hosts’ top position on the medals tally remained unchallenged in the 12th South Asian Games here on Tuesday.

India took their overall medal count to 124 (78 gold, 36 silver and 10 bronze). Holding on to a distant second spot were Sri Lanka with 84 medals, including 17 gold, 36 silver and 31 bronze medals.

The most stunning performance on the day was by the swimmers, who swept seven gold medals followed by track-and-field athletes and archers.

Saurabh Sangvekar started the golden streak for India, setting a new Games record of 3:58.84 seconds to win the 400m freestyle for men. V. Malvika secured gold in the 400m freestyle for women, setting a meet record of 4:30.08 minutes.

Sajan Prakash then bagged India’s third gold and his fourth of the Games, by winning the 200m butterfly for men with a new record time of 2:03.02. This was followed by Damini Gowda taking gold in the 200m butterfly in yet another Games record time of 2:21.12. P.S. Madhu, in 50m backstroke, also set a new record of 26.86 seconds.

Indians also won gold in the 4x200m freestyle relays for both men and women.

Silver winners were Sajan Prakash (400m freestyle for men), Shivani Kataria (400m freestyle for women), M. Arvind (50m backstroke for men) and Maana Patel (50m backstroke for women).

Before the swimmers, the archers had set the tone in the morning session in Shillong winning all the five gold medals up for grabs to take their overall count to 10 gold and 4 silver.

The women’s trio of Deepika Kumari, Laxmirani Majhi and Bombayala Devi shot below par scores but it was enough for them to blank their misfiring Sri Lankan opponents 6-0 to open the gold account in recurve.

Tarundeep Rai, Gurcharan Besra and Jayanta Talukdar followed suit with a 5-1 win over their Lankan rivals in the men’s summit clash.

India’s mixed pair of Rai and Deepika added a second gold to their kitty with a 6-0 cakewalk against the Bangladeshi duo of Sojeb Shiek and Beauty Ray.

In the afternoon session, the recurve archers bagged two gold and as many silver in the all-Indian individual finals to sign off in style with grabbing all possible 10 gold medals and four silver in total.

Making a comeback after the 2014 Asian Games, Rai retained his individual title to finish with a hat-trick of gold along with Deepika, who won the women’s individual event.

The story was no different in athletics.

Rio Olympics bound shot-putter Manpreet Kaur stole the limelight as Indians pocketed five gold medals on the opening day of the event.

Kaur won the women’s shot put event with a throw of 17.94m. Her namesake, Manpreet Junior got the silver with a throw of 15.94m while W. Fernando bagged the bronze in 14.87m in a four-woman field.

Neeraj Kumar bagged the second gold in men’s hammer throw with an effort of 66.14m. Pakistan’s Shakeel Ahmed took silver at 63.67 while L. Alansan of Sri Lanka won the bronze in 46.38m.

Mayookha Johny also shone with the gold in women’s long jump by clearing 6.43m in her sixth and final attempt. Another Indian, G. Shradha bagged the silver with an effort of 6.19m while N.C.D. Priyadarshini of Sri Lanka got the bronze in 5.89m.

In men’s and women’s 5,000m races, Indians finished one-two. Man Singh won the men’s 5,000m in a Games record time of 14:2.04 seconds while compatriot Suresh Kumar was second in 14:02.70. Nepal’s Rimal Hari Kumar was third in 14:32.18.

In the women’s 5,000m, L. Surya clocked 15:45.75 to win in Games record time ahead of countrymate Swaty Gadhave (16:14.57).

Elsewhere, Indian lifters bagged one gold and a silver on the concluding day of weightlifting event to end their campaign with 12 golds and one silver.