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  South Asian Games: Hosts’ gold rush begin

South Asian Games: Hosts’ gold rush begin

PTI
Published : Feb 7, 2016, 2:52 am IST
Updated : Feb 7, 2016, 2:52 am IST

Indian (centre) and Sri Lankan players in action in a football match on the opening day of the 12th South Asian Games in Guwahati on Saturday. — PTI

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Indian (centre) and Sri Lankan players in action in a football match on the opening day of the 12th South Asian Games in Guwahati on Saturday. — PTI

It was gold rush for India on the opening day of the South Asian Games with the country’s wrestlers, swimmers and weightlifters showing their regional dominance by making a near clean sweep of top honours here on Saturday.

India clinched 14 gold, and five silver medals on a productive day to top the medals tally with an overall count of 19. Sri Lanka, despite having a higher overall medal count of 21, occupied the second spot in the table owing to a lesser tally of gold medals (4).

Wrestlers were the stars for India, grabbing as many as five gold medals followed by the swimmers who clinched four gold and three silver medals.

The weightlifters added three gold medals to the tally after the cyclists had opened India’s account with two gold and an equal number of silver medals in the morning.

Three women and two male grapplers finished on top of the podium as the proceedings went on expected lines on the opening day of the competitions.

Rajneesh and Ravinder bagged the gold in the men’s 65kg and 57kg divisions respectively.

In the women’s wrestling, Priyanka Singh claimed the top position in the 48kg, while Manisha won gold in the 60kg and Archana Tomar clinched the yellow metal in the 55kg categories.

The Indians created quite a splash in the pool as well picking up three of their four gold medals in record times.

Asian Games bronze medallist Sandeep Sejwal (men’s 200m breaststroke), Shivani Kataria (women’s 200m freestyle) and the women’s 100m freestyle relay team set new Games records on their way to gold while Damini Gowda added another yellow metal in women’s 100m butterfly.

Sejwal won his pet event in 2:20.66sec to better his own record of 2:21.03 which he had set in the last edition in Dhaka in 2010 to defend his title. Kiran Jasinghe of Sri Lanka and Mohd Shariful Islam came second and third in 2:26.17 and 2:26.99 respectively.

India established early dominance in the weightlifting competition as well by notching up three gold medals on the first day of competitions.

Saikhom Mirabai Chanu, Harshdeep Kaur and Gururaja bagged the yellow metal for India.

Chanu lifted a total of 169kg (79kg in snatch + 90kg in clean and jerk). All her efforts in snatch, clean and jerk and total are South Asian Games records as women’s weightlifting has been included for the first time in the SAG.

Gururaja bagged the second gold for India by winning the men’s 56kg event with a total lift of 241kg (104kg + 137kg) on the opening day of the competitions.

Chathuranga Lakmal of Sri Lanka took the silver. India’s third gold was won by Harshdeep Kaur in women’s 53kg category with a total lift of 171kg (73kg + 98kg).

In Shillong, Indian archers assured themselves of four gold and as many silver medals in the individual recurve and compound sections.

Defending champion Tarundeep Rai and Gurucharan Besraalong with former world number one Deepika Kumari and Bombayla Devi Laishram stormed into the final of recurve men’s and women’s sections respectively in the morning session at the Polo Ground.