CWG: Indian athletics, gold count soars to new high (Night Lead)

NEW DELHI - Indian athletics soared to a new high at the Commonwealth Games here Tuesday with the women’s quartet of Mandeep Kaur, Manjeet Kaur, Sini Jose and Ashwini Chidananda winning the gold in the 4×400 metres relay, topping Monday’s 1-2-3 showing by the women shot putters.

The Indians clocked 3:27.77 seconds and left Nigeria (silver, 3:28.72) and England (3:29.51) behind.

In the morning, women shooters Heena Sidhu and Annu Raj Singh shot the day’s first gold, helping India surpass the highest count of 30 achieved eight years ago at the Manchester Games.

The two gold, which took the tally to 32, was topped by Indian men beating England in tie breaker 5-4 - aggregate 8-7 (3-3) - to enter the hockey final, making sure of a medal for the first time since the discipline was included at the Kuala Lumpur Games in 1998.

At 2100 IST Tuesday, India’s medal tally read: 32 gold, 25 silver and 32 bronze for a total of 89. With 66 gold, 45 silver and 40 bronze, Australia remained table toppers. England were third with 30-50-38.

In badminton, India’s Chetan Anand and Parupalli Kashyap lost their semi-final matches and they now fight for the bronze while Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa entered the women’s doubles final, thus making sure of at least silver.

Reigning table tennis champion Sharath Kamal and Soumyadeep Roy made it to the men’s singles final — two Indians in the semis for the first time. In the men’s doubles, Sharath Kamal and Subhajit Saha entered semi-finals while Mouma Das and Poulomi Ghatak are in the semis.

At Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, India began the evening session on a great note as both the men and women’s 4×100 metres relay teams won bronze. As the night wore on, Renjit Maheshwary won the men’s triple jump bronze with his personal best, bettering the national record, to touch 17.07 metres. Gold went to Nigeria’s Tosin Oke (17.16) and Cameroon’s Lucien Hugo Mamba Schlick (17.14).

Rahamatulla Molla, Suresh Sathya, Shameer Naseema Manzile and Md Abdul Najeeb Qureshi finished third in the race with a timing of 38.89 seconds behind gold-winning England(38.74) and silver Jamaica (38.79).

Geetha Satti, Shrabani nanda, P. K. Priya and Jyothi Hiriyur Manjunath narrowly missed the silver in almost photo-finish in 45.25 behind gold medallists England (44.19) and silver Ghana (45.24).

Kashinath Naik won the evening’s third bronze in the men’s javelin. He sent the spear soaring to a distance of 74.29 metres. Jarrod Bannister (81.71 metres) of Australia got the gold, while new Zealander Stuart Farquhar (78.15 metres) won the silver.

At the Karni Singh range, World champion Tejaswini Sawant won the silver in the women’s 50-metre prone event and ‘Goldfinger’ Samresh Jung and Chandrasekhar Kumar Chaudhary got the silver in the men’s 25-metre standard pistol pairs’ event.

In the women’s 10-metre air pistol, India, Australia and Canada were tied for the gold with 759 points each. Canada got the bronze on the basis of lesser number of perfect 10s - they shot 14. India and Australia had 21 each. India bagged the gold on the basis of count-back.

A second dope case, also involving a Nigerian athlete, has been found, Commonwealth Games Federation Mike Fennell told reporters.

“We have had a second anti-doping code violation. Nigeria’s Samuel Okon, a 110-metre hurdler, has tested positive for the same Methylhexaneamine substance,” Fennell said.

Fennell announced Monday that Nigerian athlete Osayemi Oludamola, who was awarded gold in 100 metres race after Australian Sally Pearson was disqualified for false start, had tested positive for Methylhexaneamine substance.

She has been provisionally suspended. A decision on withdrawing her gold medal will be taken after the results of test of her B sample are received.