New Delhi, Aug 02: India picked up two more gold medals on day five of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games (CWG), including a historic gold in Lawn Bowls and the men’s Table Tennis team who successfully defended their title. Vikas Thakur also picked up a silver in the men’s 96kg weightlifting, the eighth medal in the sport, as India held on to sixth place in the medals tally with five gold, four silver and three bronze medals in their kitty thus far.
The Lawn Bowls fairy tale
Lovely Choubey, Pinki Singh, Nayanmoni Saikia and Rupa Rani Tirkey struck gold, India’s fourth of the Games, in the Women’s Fours Lawn Bowls competition beating South Africa 17-10 in the gold medal match. It was not only the first ever gold, but also the first ever medal for India in the sport.
The Indian quartet did not have it easy however, seeing their 8-2 lead disappear in a jiffy with the South Africans making a brilliant comeback to edge ahead 8-10 after the completion of 10 ends.
With five more ends remaining; India staged a golden comeback of their own and pulled-off a nine-point streak without reply to create history.
Fifth Gold!
In the men’s team event in Table Tennis, India was up against Singapore in the final. First to go where Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Harmeet Desai against Yong Quek and Yew Pang in the Men’s Doubles rubber where the Indian pair strangled the Singaporeans 13-11, 11-7,11-5, before Zhe Yu Chew drew parity with a hard-fought win against veteran Sharath Kamal 11-7, 12-14, 11-3 and 11-9.
Sathiyan put India back in the lead with a similar four-game 12-10, 7-11, 11-7, 11-4 victory over Yew in the second singles. Harmeet Desai then finished it with a clinical 11-8, 11-5, 11-6 demolition of Zhe for India to successfully defend their crown in style.
Weightlifting again!
With seven medals including three gold medals under their belt, India’s weightlifters are raising hopes every time they step out to the field of play and today it was Vikas Thakur in the men’s 96kg category who won silver, with a total lift of 346kg.
He lifted a best of 155kg in snatch and 191 in clean and jerk to finish well behind Samoan heavyweight Don Opeloge who smashed the Games record with a massive 381kg lift.
Earlier, Punam Yadav in the women’s 76kg however registered a no-lift in the clean and jerk and did not make the board as a result.
Athletics and the Alexander
After the Marathons were run on day two, day five saw track and field events begin at the Alexander Stadium in right earnest.
India tasted immediate success with Murali Sreeshankar being the best men’s long jumper of the day with a best leap of 8.05m. Teammate Md.Anees Yahiya also qualified with a 7.68m jump to make it two Indians in the Men’s Long Jump final.
Manpreet Kaur also qualified in the Women’s Shot Put with a throw of 16.78m finishing fourth in her qualifying group.
There was disappointment for Dutee Chand in the Women’s 100m heat though as she ran 11.55 secs to finish fourth and bow out of contention.
First loss for Hockey eves
The Indian women’s hockey squad suffered their first defeat of the campaign going down to hosts England 1-3 in their third group game. They had scripted two victories over Ghana and Wales before this.
Hannah Martin, Tess Howard and Giselle Ansley scored for the home side as Vandana Katariya pulled one back for India in the fourth quarter of the game.
Other results
In Swimming, Srihari Nataraj qualified as the first reserve in the Men’s 200m backstroke, finishing his heat in third place with a timing of 2.00.84mins. Advait Page and Kushagra Rawat also qualified from their respective Men’s 1500m freestyle heats with the former clocking 15.39.25 mins in his heat and the latter 15.47.77 mins, as both registered identical fourth place finishes.
Sunayna Kuruvila registered a fluent win in the first women’s singles Plate semi-final. Sunayna steamrolled Pakistan’s Faiza Zafar 11-2, 11-4, 11-5.
However, Saurav Ghosal went out in the men’s singles semis against former world number one and current British Open champion Paul Coll of New Zealand to triump 11-9, 11-4, 11-1, in straight games.
Coming up later on Day five
Athletics: Seema Punia and Navjeet Kaur Dhillon in the Women’s Discus final
Badminton: India up against Malaysia in the mixed team Final
Boxing: Rohit Tokas up against Ghana’s Alfred Kotey in a Round of 16 bout
Weightlifting: Usha Bannur Natesh Kumara in the Women’s 87kg category
IOA press release
