National Games: Gymnasts, Khade propels Maharashtra to top in medal tally

An overwhelming performance by its gymnasts and swimmer Virdhawal Khade's double gold effort propelled Maharashtra to the top spot in the medal standings at the end of the fifth day in the 34th Asian Games on Thursday.

Inspite of the performances on the field, today's cynosure of all eyes, however, was Uttar Pradesh athlete Priyanka Panwar, whose parents accused an Athletics Federation of India official, Anu Kumar of sexually harassing their daughter.

Unaffected by the episode, Priyanka won the bronze in the women's 100m as Sameer Mon of Services and H M Jyoti of Karnatka emerged as the fastest sprinters of the National Games in the men's and women's sections respectively.

Maharashtra girls won six gold medals in the team and individual competitions of the rhythmic gymnastics, while Indian swimming sensation Khade hogged the limelight in pool with two gold bagged in record timings to help the state upstage Manipur from the top spot.

The day saw five records in swimming with Khade picking his fifth gold in total, while athletics saw one record by local lad Gurmit Singh in the 20km walk.

Riding on some fine performance by their shooters and athletes, Services Sports Control Board shot themselves to the second spot.

Maharashtra now have 22 gold, 25 silver and 22 bronze medals, while Services too have an equal number of gold but with 17 silver and 16 bronze they occupy the second spot.

Delhi are at the third place with 20-12-14, while overnight leaders Manipur slipped to fourth position with 19-10-14.

In the gymnastics, a team record score of 182.80 points helped Maharashtra clinch the first gold medal and the state's Shate Akshata emerged top in all round individual championship -- both competitions being held late last night.

Today, Akshata and Kshipra Joshi began with a bang winning two gold medals each in their rhythmic events.

Thus Akshata became the first gymnast in this National Games to win three yellow metals.

However, both the gymnasts failed to repeat their performances with Akashata finishing third in ball (17.583) and Kshipra getting the bronze in the Ribbon (16.525).

Kshipra also got a silver in the all round individual rhythmic championship while Jammu and Kashmir's Mitali finished third in the event.

Punjab's Prabhjot Bajwa won silver medals in rope and ball events and ended up with a bronze in the hoop.

Kshipra finished second and third in rope and ribbon events respectively while state-mate K Sadhichha won silver in the hoop event.

Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab bagged silver and bronze medals in the team championship of the rhythmic gymnastics.

In swimming, Khade won the 100m backstroke with a timing of 59.89s, beating 1:00.60s record set by Rohit Havaldar in Karnataka's Havaldar (59.97s) and Ashwin Menon (1:00.23s) claimed the silver and bronze respectively.

Khade did an encore in the 50m butterfly when he improved his heat record timing of 25.90s by touching the pad at 25.16s for his fifth gold in total.

Gujarat's Anshul Kothari (26.62s) and Haryana's Pulkit Kumar (26.69s) won the silver and bronze respectively.

Continuing his fine run, Karnakta's Gagan A P clinched the 800m freestyle with a record timing of 8:27.22s and bettered Havaldar's four-year-old record of 8:35.39s.

Mahrashtra's Mandar Divse (8:38.38s) and Merwyn Chan of Delhi (8:44.96s) won the silver and bronze respectively. In the women's section Richa Mishra clinched two gold in the pool -- on of them in record timing -- to make it nine in total.

The Delhi girl opened her day's account with a gold in 1,500m freestyle clocking 18:14.79s. In the effort she bettered her four-year-old record (18:14.97s) even as Karnataka's Sushaka Pratap (18:43.01s) and Tamil Nadu's Anusha Mehta (19:24.01s) won the silver and bronze respectively.

In 100m backstroke, Richa clocked 1:09.22s for her ninth gold as Maharashtra's Aarti Ghorpade (1:09.85) and Tamil Nadu's R Sushmitha (1:11.67) won the silver and bronze respectively.

Richa also bagged a silver in the 50m butterfly by finishing behind Karnataka's Pooja Alva (29:87s) with a timing of 29.98s. Talasha Prabhu of Goa (30.14) won the bronze.

Maharashtra also won the diving 3m springboard through Hrutika Shriram who totalled 205.35 points for a new meet record.

Hrutika bettered her four-year-old record of 199.50 points as state mate Swati Vidap (156.10) won the silver and Karnataka's Karishma Mohite (155.85) won the bronze.

In shooting, Services Sports Control Board today clinched three gold and a silver medal to dominate at the Tikait Umrao Shooting Range here.

In a star-studded field, which included ace shooters like Samresh Jung and Jaspal Rana, S M Vijay Kumar shot 567 en route to the gold in 25m standard pistol.

Veteran shooter Rana shot 565 points in total to settle for a silver, while Haryana's Vivek Singh (563) bagged the bronze, even as Jung finished in a lowly fifth position.

In the of 25m standard pistol team event, Haryana trio of Vivek, Harpreet Singh (562) and Rahul Panwar (552) totalled 1677 to claim the gold. Services took the silver with 1662 points, while Madhya Pradesh trio of Mahaveer Singh (555), Mahender Singh (553) and Amit Kumar Pilaniya (552) bagged the bronze.

It was a clean sweep by Services men in the 10m air rifle event with Sanjeev Rajput (596), Satyendra Singh (595) and Imran Hasan Khan (588) grabbing the top three individual spots, which also earned them the team gold with 1779 points.

In equestrian, Madhya Pradesh clinched the gold in show jumping event at the Gopal Maidan in Jamshedpur. Services bagged the silver while Delhi took the bronze.

In volleyball, Tamilnadu struggled past Kerala 19-25, 25-22, 25-19, 25-19 to win the gold medal in the men's section.

Kerala women gave the state something to cheer as they defeated Bengal 25-16, 25-21, 21-11 for the gold in the women's category while Andhra Pradesh beat Karnataka 25-16, 25-13, 25-16 to take the bronze.