CWG: 34 medal-winning India holds on second position on Day-4

NEW DELHI - India on Thursday maintained its second position standing in the XIXth Commonwealth Games with 34 medals. The current leaders are Australia with 70 medals. England is in third position with 46 medals at the time of the filing of this report.

On Thursday, India earned ten more medals. It now has 14 Gold, 11 Silver and 9 Bronze medals.

Australia has 33 Gold, 19 Silver and 18 Bronze medals. England has 12 Gold, 23 Silver and 11 Bronze medals.

Ace Indian shuttler and World No.3 player Saina Nehwal and other Indian shuttlers are battling England in the semi-finals after defeating Canada in the quarter-finals this afternoon. India is hopeful about making it to the finals of the event.

The golden streak struck over the last two days was kept going by pistol shooter Gurpreet Singh who joined hands with Vijay Kumar and Omkar Singh respectively to snatch the gold medals in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (Pairs) and 10m Air Pistol (Pairs).

Haryana’s Geeta gave India their third gold of the day on the first day of women’s wrestling that made its debut, by comprehensively winning the 55kg freestyle event.

India scooped up a bagful of three silver and four bronze medals to firmly remain in second spot behind leaders Australia with a tally of 14-11-9 while the Kangaroos jumped further ahead of the rest with a haul of 29-16-14.

The shooting gold medals provided by the men’s pistol wielders took the country’s overall gold tally from the Dr Karni Singh range to 6, showing how much the marksmen and women have contributed in keeping India’s flag flying high.

Grappler Geeta trounced her rival Emily Bensted of Australia in the 55 kg category final.

She entered the gold medal round by defeating Lovina Odohi Edward of Nigeria, but her teammate - 63kg grappler Suman Kundu - lost in the semi-finals.

Men’s double trap shooting ace Ronjon Sondhi got a silver medal along with the men’s archery compound team and women’s 48kg freestyle grappler Nirmala Devi.

The four bronze medals came in archery (women’s team compound event), woman grappler Suman Kundu (63kg) 77kg weightlifter Sudhir Kumar and Ashish Kumar, a surprise medallist in men’s gymnastics (floor exercise).

India struck gold early on the fourth day when marksmen Vijay Kumar and Gurpreet Singh clinched the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (pairs) event before the men’s and women’s archery teams added to the medal tally with a silver and a bronze.

Kumar and Gurpreet together fired 1162 to bag the top prize in the pistol event ahead of Malaysia’s Amir Hasan Hasli Izwan and Adzha Hafiz (1142) and Australian bronze medal winning duo of Bruce Quick and David Chapman (1125).

The Indian men’s compound team lost to England by two points (229-231) in the gold medal-deciding match while the women defeated Malaysia by four points (223-219) in the corresponding event’s bronze play-off tie.

These were the first two medals for the country from the archery range.

The Indian men’s archery outfit gave a hard time to their English rivals before losing narrowly in the final.

The trio of Bheigyabati Chanu, Jhano Hansdah and Gagandeep won the bronze in the women’s compound archery team event beating Malaysia 223-219 in a thrilling third place play-off tie that went to the wire.

Needing five points to clinch the bronze with one arrow left, Indians won the thrilling clash between the two Asian nations Hansdah showed nerves of steel to calmly fire an 8-pointer to haul in the country’s first medal in the bow and arrow competition.

The Indians went out of contention for the gold by losing to Canada in the semi-finals while Malaysia failed to make the grade after losing to England in the other semi-final.

But world champion Tejaswini Sawant and Lajja Gauswami fell by the wayside in the 50m rifle 3 position singles.

Indian challenge continued to remain strong in table tennis, tennis and badminton.

The women’s team made it to the final of the table tennis championship by defeating England in the semi finals.

Men’s tennis top seed Somdev Devvarman inched closer to a medal in the singles with a 6-3 6-4 win over sixth seed Rubin Statham of New Zealand.

Ace Indian shuttlers Chetan Anand and Saina Nehwal notched up contrasting wins as India thrashed Canada 3-0 to set up a semifinal clash with England in the mixed badminton team event.

Mixed doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and V Diju just took 19 minutes to make short work of NG Toby and Gao Grace 21-8 21-12 in the first match of the day to give India a 1-0 lead.

Saina then sealed the issue in India’s favour with a 21-16 21-13 victory over her one-time doubles partner Anna Rice in the women’s singles.

But in men’s hockey India went down tamely 2-5 against world and Games champions Australia.(ANI)