National Games: Dipa Karmakar Wins Five Gold Medals, Services Dominate

Commonwealth Games bronze medallist gymnast Dipa Karmakar excelled with a total of five gold medals for Tripura but the Services Sports Control Board (SSCB) continued their domination in the overall standings on day six of competitions in the 35th National Games on Friday.

SSCB broke away from the neck-and-neck competition being offered by Haryana to top the medals tally with 35 gold, 11 silver and 11 bronze for a total of 57. Haryana were second with 25 gold, 13 silver and six bronze (44), followed by Maharashtra (23 gold, 25 silver and 20 bronze = 68).

Karmakar, the first Indian woman gymnast to fetch a Commonwealth Games gold, was way ahead as she repeated her 2011 edition's show to be the top performer yet again, clinching the yellow metal in individual all-round, table vault, balancing beam, uneven parallel bars and floor exercises. Dipa accumulated 52.100 points in all.

The overall individual silver was won by Madhya Pradesh representative Pranti Nayak (47.600), whose very participation for MP is being protested by the Bengal Olympic Association owing to her registration and training in the eastern state. The bronze went to Bengal's Pranati Das (43.000).

At the shooting range here, the Services' guns were on target in both the team and individual competitions of the men's 50m rifle 3 position event. The trio of Surendra Singh Rathod, Satyendra Singh and Chain Singh Manhas totalled 3492 to finish on top, well ahead of Haryana (Sanjeev Rajput, Mahesh Kumar and Deepak Kumar), who shot a score of 3431.

The Uttar Pradesh troika of Akhil Sheoran, Ishan Goel and Rahul Poonia settled for a bronze with a score of 3396.

SSCB then added a gold and a bronze in the individual competition. Satyendra clinched it in a shoot-off after being tied at 445.8 with Maharashtra's Swapnil Kusale in the regulation shots. Chain Singh Manhas, who won three gold medals overall, had to be content with a bronze despite leading the pack for quite a while during the finals.

In Thrissur, the boxing competition kicked off amid much sound and fury.

Despite Boxing India's threat of a ban, 27 states and the Services Sports Control Board registered for the event but much to their "shock", the organizers decided to conduct the event under the old pattern of scoring due to the absence of the new software, leading to protests from the teams, who demanded that boxers be allowed to wear the headguards if every scoring punch was to fetch points as per the old norms.

The complains notwithstanding, 127 men and 55 women from 27 states and the SSCB have turned to compete.

Back at the gymnastics arena, former Commonwealth Games silver-medallist and Asian Games bronze-medallist, Ashish Kumar ended his campaign with a silver (parallel bars) and a bronze (table vault), braving a heel injury through the competition.

Elsewhere, Chhattisgarh and Delhi surprisingly lifted the Beach Handball men's and women's gold medals despite not being coastal states. In beach volleyball, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala emerged triumphant in the men's and women's finals, respectively.