CWG: Archers, shooters, wrestlers make for a golden Sunday (Evening Lead)

NEW DELHI - Archers, wrestlers and shooters Sunday bagged four golds between them, taking India within striking distance of its record Commonwealth Games gold medal haul of 30 achieved eight years ago.

Two archery gold and one each from the shooting range and wrestling arena took the tally to 28. Add to it 18 silver and 21 bronze and it totals 67, which is two short of India’s best ever showing in the 2002 Manchester Games.

Deepika Kumari, the 16-year-old archery sensation, set off Sunday’s gold haul by winning in the individual recurve.

Shooter Harpreet Singh, archer Rahul Banerjee and wrestler Sushil Kumar bagged a gold each in their events to keep India in the second position in the overall medal count.

At 1800 hours IST, India’s medal tally read: 28 gold, 18 silver and 21 bronze. Australia too continued its gold haul to remain the table topper. It has 57 gold, 33 silver and 35 bronze. England were in third slot with 25-45-29.

There was disappointment, however, as India’s most experienced archer Dola Banerjee could bag only a bronze.

Deepika Kumari, daughter of an auto-rickshaw driver in Ranchi, became India’s first individual gold winner from archery in the Games. She beat Athens Olympics bronze medallist Alison Jane Williamson of England 6-0.

Dola won the bronze after beating Malaysian Anbarasi Subramaniam 6-2 in the third place play-off.

Rahul Banerjee added the second gold from archery, winning the men’s individual recurve beating Canada’s Jason Lyon 6-5. The bronze went to India’s Jayanta Talukdar.

Harpreet Singh won the gold in the men’s 25 metres centre fire pistol event while the silver went to Vijay Kumar after a dramatic four-way shoot-off. Former world champion Manavjit Singh Sandhu trapped the bronze to round off another successful day for hosts at the range.

The fourth gold was taken by Olympics bonze medallist wrestler Sushil Kumar in the freestyle 66 kg category, defeating South Africa’s Heinrich Barnes 7-0.