Lifters win India’s first four medals at CWG 2010 (Night Lead)

NEW DELHI - Weightlifters brought India’s first four medals at the Commonwealth Games 2010 here Monday. Soniya Chanu won a silver and Sandhya Rani Devi a bronze in the women’s 48kg category. Soon, Sukhen Dey and Srinivasa Rao Valluri came up with a similar performance in the men’s 56kg category.

Badminton was a cakewalk, tennis saw a good day and table tennis produced a mixed bag. The women’s hockey team survived a scare, while the swimmers crashed out.

Chanu had a total lift of 167 kg - 73 kg in snatch and 94kg in the clean and jerk section.

Sandhya Rani had a total lift of 165kg (snatch 70kg, clean and jerk 95 kg).

The gold, the first medal of CWG 2010, went to Nigerian Augustina Nwaokolo, who also set a Commonwealth record. She had a total lift of 175kg, with 77kg in the snatch and 98kg in the clean and jerk sections.

Dey lifted a total of 252 kg (snatch 112, clean and jerk 140) for the silver while Srinivasa Rao claimed the bronze with an overall lift of 248 kg (snatch 107, clean and jerk 141).

It was a cakewalk for India in their opening pool D match in the badminton mixed team event with a 5-0 drubbing of Kenya at the Siri Fort Sports Complex.

The Indian team, which won the bronze at Melbourne in 2006, are seeded second behind Malaysia. The hosts literally toyed with the Kenyans in front of a sizeable crowd.

Chetan Anand and Saina Nehwal won their singles matches, and then Rupesh Kumar and Sanave Thomas made took the doubles before Ashwini Ponappa and Aparna Balan teamed up to win and finally the mixed pair V. Diju and Jwala Gutta made it a clean sweep.

India will face Barbados Tuesday and will play Wales and Scotland on successive days.

Tennis stars Leander Paes and Sania Mirza rounded off a successful opening day for India at the R. K. Khanna Tennis Complex winning their match dropping just one gameto Saint Lucia’s Stacey Nykita Roheman and Alberton Richelieu to enter the mixed doubles quarterfinals.

Rohan Bopanna kicked off the day with an emphatic straight sets victory over Uganda’s Robert Buyinza to sail into the last 16 of the men’s singles and Rushmi Charkravathi soon made it two in a row for India, dropping only one game in beating Pinki Agnes Montlha of Lesotho.

Poojashree Venkatesha hardly broke sweat blanking Lesotho’s Nthabiseng Eunicia Nqosa.

The only blemish in India’s campaign was the loss of Bopanna and Nirupama Sanjeev in the mixed doubles first round to top seeds Paul Hanley and Anastasia Rodionova of Australia 3-6, 6-3, 3-6.

India had a mixed opening day in table tennis as the men breezed past island nation Vanuatu while the women lost one of their two group matches against New Zealand.

The Indian eves registered a comfortable 3-0 victory over Sri Lanka in the morning but lost 2-3 in a close match against the impressive New Zealanders later in the day at the Yamuna Sports Complex.

Four of the five New Zealand players are of Chinese origin.

The women’s team, bronze medallists four years ago,is seeded fourth in the tournament.

The women’s hockey competition also began Monday and India survived a scare against Scotland in pool A, salvaging a 1-1 draw after being down by a third minute goal.

The Scots were off to a great start when Holly Cram found the net in the third minute. India dominated the rest of the game, but missed chances until Jasjeet Kaur scored the equalizer in the 45th minute.

India’s men’s 4×100 metres freestyle relay swimming team qualified for the finals but finished sixth, as they had in the heats at the at the S.P.Mukherjee Aquatics Complex.

In the men’s 50m backstroke, Badrinath Melkote clocked 27.52 secs to qualify for the semi-finals, but couldn’t move any further.

Indian swimmers also failed to qualify in the women’s 200m freestyle, men’s 400m freestyle, women’s 200m individual medley, men’s 200m butterfly and women’s 50m breaststroke.