CWG: At Games half-way, Indians set new marks

NEW DELHI - New records in shooting, superb showing by wrestlers, first ever Commonwealth Games medals in archery, athletics and gymnastics — hosts India had much to celebrate at the half-way stage of the Delhi edition of the Games Saturday.

A scintillating opening ceremony Oct 3 was followed by shooters bringing in much cheer by winning gold after gold and setting new Commonwealth Games records to boot at the Karni Singh Range.

As the Games neared the half-way mark, women began to steal the show with wrestlers and archers giving the country its first ever CWG medals in the events. The women’s table tennis team shone with a silver, after making it to their firstever final in the Games.

Indians made a mark in the Games showpiece event of athletics with Kavita Raut, a tribal girl from Maharashtra, creating history by bagging a bronze in the gruelling 10,000-metre run. She is the first Indian woman to win an individual medal from the track event in the Commonwealth Games.

Harminder Singh added to the joy by taking the bronze in the 20km walk.

Gymnastics, a sport yet to find many takers in India, got a boost with Ashish Kumar bagging the first-ever medal in the Commonwealth Games in the discipline. He won a bronze and later a silver.

The good showing by the shooters, though expected, and the unexpected medal-winning performance by women in disciplines like archery and athletics besides the spectacular opening ceremony seem to have restored the country’s battered pride and image in the run-up to the 11-day sporting extravaganza that ends Oct 14.

Weeks of damning reports about corruption, shoddy work and last minute rush to get the Games Village and venues up and ready for the biggest event hosted by India since the 1982 Asian Games apparently have had no impact on the focus of thousands of athletes here from home and abroad.

Ahead of the opening ceremony which came in for near universal appreciation, the 6,800 athletes and officials staying at the Games Village raved about the facilities, particularly food.

This was in sharp contrast to the earlier threat by many teams not to stay in the Village following telecast of images of dirty toilets, soiled bedspreads and pan-stained walls.

Gagan Narag is among the shooters who has set new Games records in shooting. He also pipped shooting’s pin-up boy Abhinav Bindra, the lone Indian Olympic gold medallist, for a gold at the Games.

The women wrestlers to shine were Anita, who bagged gold in 67kg freestyle and Alka Tomar in the 59kg category.

It was as if India’s women recurve archery team of Dola Banerjee, Bombayla Devi and Deepika Kumari were waiting for the return of the sport to the Commonwealth Games. They bagged gold edging out England 207-206 as the discipline returned to the Games after a gap of 28 years.

Amid these winning notes, the most disappointing news came from men’s tennis and table tennis.

Indian men failed to defend their gold and settled for bronze in table tennis, while in tennis two sure-shot golds were lost when reputed doubles pair Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi lost in the semis and Paes then lost the mixed event with Sania Mirza.

off the field, India’s organisation of the Games and the facilities created for the multi-sports extravaganza came in for praise, though there were some complaints about the water in the pool being contaminated and weighing machines in boxing not functioning.

However, most of the complaints were later found to be without much basis.

But the scribes had much to complain about the official Games website that was not only painstakingly slow but also often gave wrong results.