CWG: India close to 100 medals, battles England for second spot (Intro Night Lead)

NEW DELHI - Four gold medals, including a hat-trick by boxers, took India’s gold count to 36 and the overall tally to 96 on the penultimate day of the Commonwealth Games here Wednesday.

Eyeing 100 medals, India is locked in a close race with England for the second spot in the overall medal count. England has 37 gold, one more than India at the end of Wednesday’s events.

India is in the running for three more gold Thursday ahead of the closing ceremony in the evening - one each from Saina Nehwal and the women’s doubles team in badminton and another from men’s hockey, though the Indians will be taking on world champions Australia.

India also got a silver and a bronze in shooting and one more bronze from table tennis pushing the total to 96.

India’s tally stood at 36 gold, 26 silver and 34 bronze. England had 37 gold, 56 silver and 45 bronze for a total of 138. Australia led the table with 72 gold, 50 silver and 47 bronze.

The three gold from boxing arena came from Paramjit Samota’(91+ kg category), Manoj Kumar (64kg) and Suranjoy Mayengbam Singh (52kg) after his Kenyan opponent gave him a walkover.

The Indian table tennis pair of Sharath Kamal and Shubhajit Saha bagged the men’s doubles gold beating Singaporeans Gao Ning and Yang Zi 3-2 in a nerve-wracking final.

With the doubles win, Sharath more than made up for his singles loss to Yang earlier in the day. The Indian pair beat the Singaporeans 9-11, 12-10, 11-4, 5-11, 11-8 in the summit clash.

There was also some bad news on the athletics front where Rani Yadav failed the dope test after the 20 km walk.

Rani tested positive for banned anabolic agent 19-Norandrosterone, the Commonwealth Games Federation said. The 20-year-old, who finished sixth in the competition Saturday, has provisionally been suspended pending a hearing.

This is the third positive test of the Games, Nigerian sprinter and women’s 100m champion Oludamola Osayomi, and her team-mate, the 110m hurdler Samuel Okon, being the other two. Both tested positive for using the banned stimulant Methylexaneamine.

Osayomi has been stripped of her gold medal, and all her results in the Games nullified.

Though the shooters did not win a gold Wednesday, their medal tally of 30 surpassed their Melbourne Games count of 27. However, they won 14 gold in Delhi while they had got 16 in Melbourne four years ago.

Pistol shooter Heena Sidhu missed the gold by 0.3 points and Samresh Jung settled for the bronze while Gagan Narang failed to qualify for the final of the 50 metre rifle prone individual event. Narang, however, emerged as the best shooter with four golds.

In the men’s 25 metre standard pistol, Samresh won the bronze with a score of 559 while the gold went to Singapore’s Bin Gai, who shot a total of 570. Trinidad and Tobago’s Daniel Peter Rogers got the silver with a score of 563.