Karnataka swimmer Nina Venkatesh won the women's 50m butterfly event for her fourth gold medal while Virdhawal Khade did the double, adding the men's 50m butterfly yellow metal to his kitty, at the 37th National Games in Panaji on Thursday. (Full Coverage | Sports News)
Nina stopped the clock on 27.70 seconds to win the gold with a Games record time ahead of Manavi Varma of Karnataka (27.90s) and Rutuja Khade of Maharashtra (28.38 s) in women’s 50m butterfly.
Virdhawal, who had won the 50m freestyle gold, edged out his state-mate Mihir Ambre (24.67s) and Kerala's Sajan Prakash (24.78s) with a new Games record time of 24.60s.
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One of the most consistent swimmers in the circuit, Srihari Nataraj of Karnataka won gold in the 100m backstroke event with a new Games record of 55.59 seconds. Rishabh Das of Maharashtra (57.37s) won the silver while Karnataka’s Siva Sridhar took the bronze with a timing of 57.41s.
In the women’s 100m backstroke, Maharashtra’s Palak Joshi won gold, stopping the clock at 1:05.29 seconds. Goa's Sanjana Prabhugaonker won silver (1:05.73s) and Ridhima Veerendra Kumar of Karnataka picked up the bronze (1:05.86s).
Maharashtra now leads the standings with 60 gold, 48 silver and 53 bronze medals and still have a sizeable advantage over defending champions Services, who after a slow start now has 37 gold, 13 silver and one bronze. Haryana is currently third with a total of 85 medals, including 31 gold.
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Haryana won three of the six gold medals that were decided in wresting on Thursday.
At the Athletics Stadium, Arun AB of Services hogged the limelight on the penultimate day of the track and field events by erasing men’s triple jump Games record. His gold medal performance of 16.79m was better than Praveen Chithravel’s 16.68m record set last year in Gujarat.
Srabani Nanda of Odisha and Abhin Devadiga of Karnataka clinched the gold medals in 200m women and men's sprints respectively.
Srabani (23.69s) pipped Punjab’s Kamaljeet Kaur (23.84s) and favourite Jyoti Yarraji of Andhra Pradesh (23.95s) to win the gold.
In the men's category, Karnataka's Abhin stopped the clock at 20.89s to win the gold while state-mate K Shashikanth (20.97s) won the silver and Odisha’s Animesh Kujur (20.99s) bagged the bronze .
Chanda KM of Delhi won the gold in the women’s 800m, adding to the silver she won in 1500m. She completed the two-lap race with a time of 2:01.74s ahead Yamuna Ladkat of Maharashtra and Pooja of Haryana.
Anirban Ghosh of West Bengal and Archana Kamath of Karnataka clinched the men’s and women’s singles gold medals in table tennis while Maharashtra added two gold medals from mixed and women’s doubles at the Campal Multipurpose Indoor Stadium.
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In the cycling competitions held at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi, there were no upsets as India internationals won all the six gold medals on offer.
Meenakshi of Haryana clinched two gold medals, winning the 15km scratch and 3km Individual Pursuit races.
Naman Kapil of Punjab bagged the 15km scratch race while Meenakshi of Haryana finished first in 10km scratch race.
David Beckham of Andaman and Nicobar Islands edged out his national team compatriots Rojit Singh and Venkappa Kengalagutti to win the gold in the 1000m Individual Time Trial to bag the union territory's first medal of the Games.
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In the women’s 500m Individual Time Trial, Delhi's Triyasha Paul won the gold.
