National Games: Vijay Kumar Wins 2 Medals; Saurav Ghosal, Joshana Chinappa Clinch Squash Gold

Olympic hero Vijay Kumar's pistol fetched him two more medals while the seasoned squash duo of Saurav Ghosal and Joshana Chinappa clinched the individual gold in contrasting styles on the fourth day of competitions in the 35th National Games here on Wednesday.

The Services Sports Control Board, aiming for a hat-trick of overall championship wins, continued to be dominant and have so far accumulated 20 gold, 4 silver and 9 bronze medals to total 33. Haryana rode on a strong wrestling performance to be second with 18 gold, 7 silver and 4 bronze, totalling 29, followed by Maharshtra (10 gold, 16 silver, 11 bronze = 37).

Vijay, after emerging on top in both the team and individual 25m centre fire pistol events on Tuesday, completed a hat-trick of gold when he combined with Gurpreet Singh and Omkar Singh to ensure a numero uno finish for SSCB in the 25m standard pistol men's team competition.

However, the London Olympic silver-medallist settled for a bronze in the individual event with a score of 565. The individual gold was clinched by his SSCB teammate Gurpreet Singh (572) with Madhya Pradesh's Mahendra Singh (568) fetching the silver.

Services dominated the 10m rifle event as well with Chain Singh Manhas, who won the 50m rifle prone gold yesterday, added a second yellow metal to his kitty by finishing on top again today. Manhas scooped the gold by a whisker totalling 205.9 against Uttar Pradesh's Akhil Sheoran, who shot a score of 205.8. Another Uttar Pradesh shooter -- Sathyam Chauhan --was a distant third after scoring 183.5.

However, Haryana pipped them in the team competition with the trio of Sanjeev Rajput, Prasanth and Deepak Kumar clinching the gold ahead of Manhas, Ravi Kumar and Ashok Chavan. The bronze went to the Uttar Pradesh team of Akhil Sheron, Sathyan Chauhan and Rajendra Rai.

The squash competition here saw complete domination by Tamil Nadu as all the finalists in both the men's and women's competition belonged to the state. First up was women's singles in which the seasoned Joshana Chinappa did not have much trouble in sailing past Lakshya R 11-5 11-8 11-4 to nab the gold medal.

The bronze medals went to yesterday's losing semifinalists -- Urwashi Joshi of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh's Sachika Ingale.

In the men's summit clash, Ghosal rallied to beat Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu after conceding the initial advantage. He won the match 4-11 11-4 11-8 11-6 to expectedly walk away with the top honours, while bronze-medallists were Delhi's Gaurav Nadrajoy and Tamil Nadu's Ravi Dixit.

At the aquatics centre, home state's swimming sensation Sajan Prakash continued to create a splash by bagging a fourth gold medal in record time. Prakash, who has already got three golds in the last three days, shattered an 18-year-old meet record to win the gold in the 200m butterfly stroke men's final with a timing of 2:00.69sec. West Bengal's Supriyo Mondal finished a close second by clocking 2:00.80sec, followed by Madhya Pradesh's Aaron D'Souza (2:03.89sec).

In the women's 200m butterfly, Madhya Pradesh's Richa Mishra also broke the previous meet record set by herself in 2002 to clinch the gold with a timing of 2:21.66sec ahead of Karnataka's Damini Gowda (2:22.35sec). Tamil Nadu's Sherlyn Devadasan had to be content with a bronze after clocking 2:25.73sec.

Asian Games bronze-medallist Sandeep Sejwal was not to be left behind as he bettered the meet record set by him to win the gold in the 50 breastroke race. Sejwal clocked 27.98sec to be a comfortable winner beating Haryana's Puneet Rana (29.23sec) and Punjab's Jashandeep Singh (29.46sec).

In the weightlifting arena of Thrissur, Manipur's O Geeta Devi claimed the 69kg category gold medal with a lift of 211kg (93+118). Mizoram's Lalchhanhimi (83+104=191) edged out Andhra Pradesh's G Aruna Rani (85+105=190).

In the men's 94kg category, Assam found its second gold-medallist in the Games when Jameer Hussain pipped SSCB's Veerender Singh. Hussain lifted 326kg (146+180) to emerge champion ahead of Singh, whose total effort was 321kg (146+175). The bronze medal was clinched by Madhya Pradesh's Noginder Singh (151+168=319).

However, Praful Kumar Dubey ensured that SSCB did manage a gold from weightlifting with an effort of 326kg (146+180). Maharashtra's Christopher Victor grabbed the silver with a lift of 314kg (136+178), finishing ahead of third-placed Rashpal Singh (134+177=311) of Punjab.

In gymnastics, former Commonwealth and Asian Games bronze-medallist Ashish Kumar, who is on road to recovery after being laid low by injuries, picked up a silver medal in the men's individual all round event. Ashish was outshone by SSCB's Rajesh kumar Batra, while local favourite Shinoj took the bronze medal.

Elsewhere, a meet record was set in 3m springboard diving by Maharashtra's Rithika P Sreeram, who totalled 214.50, bettering her statemate Hrutika Sharma's mark of 205.35 set in the previous Games in 2011.

On the wrestling mat, Haryana's dominant show continued with Rajendra Kumar claiming the men's 59kg greco roman gold after beating Delhi's Ravinder. The bronze-medallists in this event were Maharashtra's Vikram Krushant and Chattisgarh's Nitin.

Another gold for the state came from Amit Dhankar, who beat SSCB's Arun to emerge champion in the men's 70kg freestyle final.

At the tennis court, the Gujarat women's team, comprising Ankita Raina, Eetee Asheshkumar, Vaibhavi Trivedi and Niku Amin, won the gold medal by beating Telangana 2-0 in the final, winning both the singles matches. The Telangana team comprised Nidhi, Sowjanya, Iska and Ram. The bronze medals went to losing semifinalists Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

Tamil Nadu won the gold medal in the men's team final, beating Telangana 2-1. The champion team comprised N Sriram Balaji, R Ramanathan, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and V Natarajan.