Shooters Ramita and Arshdeep Singh extended Haryana’s lead at the top of the medal tally at the 36th National Games by defeating the more fancied Madhya Pradesh duo of Shreya Agarwal and Aishawary Pratap Singh Tomar 17-9 in the mixed team 10m air rifle final at the AM & RTA Rifle Club on Saturday.
Ramita, 18, and Arshdeep Singh, 26, made the gold medal match appear pretty one-sided. That belied expectations of a close contest after the Madhya Pradesh team had topped qualification 0.2 points ahead of Haryana. It was Haryana’s second gold in the shooting competition and helped the state’s gold medal haul touch double figures.
Shooting
Mixed team 10m air rifle: Haryana (Arshdeep Singh, Ramita) beat Madhya Pradesh (Shreya Agarwal, Aishawary Pratap Singh Tomar) 17-9 in the final.
Bronze: Tamil Nadu (R Narmadha Nithin, Sri Karthik Sabari Raj) beat Punjab (Samiksha Dhingra, Arjun Babuta) 16-12 and Rajasthan (Nisha Kanwar, Divyansh Singh Panwar) beat Uttar Pradesh (Shreya Saksena, Vidit Jain) 16-8.
Uttar Pradesh climbed to the second spot on the medal chart by winning both the men and women’s 5000m races at IIT Gandhinagar through Abhishek Pal and Parul Chaudhary. Meanwhile, Services’ Subhash Lahre won gold in the men’s 67kg class weightlifting competition at Mahatma Mandir Complex.
Pal and Chaudhary had both secured a fifth-place finish in the 2015 National Games but they asserted their superiority over the rest of the field to claim gold medals. Pal won in 14:07.25s, beating two Services runners, Karitk Kumar and Sawan Barwal, as well as the defending champion G Lakshmanan.
Chaudhary was pleased that she could win her first National Games gold despite not having not done much speed work in training since the World Athletics Championships in July this year. She stayed close to the leaders and produced a kick that brooked no response from others. Chaudhary won in 16:34.68.
Athletics
Men
5000m: 1. Abhishek Pal (Uttar Pradesh) 14:07.25; 2. Kartik Kumar (Services) 14:08.24; 3. Sawan Barwal (Services) 14:10.53.
Women
5000m: 1. Parul Chaudhary (Uttar Pradesh) 16:34.68; 2. Seema (Himachal Pradesh) 16:36.18; 3. Sanjivani Jadhav (Maharashtra) 16:39.97.
In the absence of Commonwealth Games weightlifting gold medallist Jeremy Lalrinnunga, Subhash Lahre, who hails from Chhattisgarh, picked up gold with a total lift of 275kg. K Neelam Raju (Andhra Pradesh) and Sushant Sahu (Odisha) had identical total lifts of 270kg, but the former won silver due to his lighter bodyweight.
Raju sought to put Lahre under pressure by attempting a 153kg clean and jerk but he failed in his pursuit. He then had to endure a tense wait to be assured of silver medal as Sahu tried to change his place on the podium. However, since the Odia lifter was unable to clear his attempt to lift 154kg, Raju took silver.
Jeremy Lalrinnunga’s childhood friend and Mizoram team-mate Jacob Vanlaltluanga, who also started his career at the Army Sports Institute in Pune, could have provided a good challenge. But he did not look in his elements on Saturday, managing only one legal lift of 120kgs in Snatch and finishing with three no-lifts in clean and jerk.
Weightlifting
Men’s 67kg class: 1. Subhash Lahre (Services) Snatch 121kg, Clean & Jerk 154kg, Total 275kg; 2. K Neelam Raju (Andhra Pradesh) 124, 146, 270; 3. Sushant Sahu (Odisha) 119, 151, 270.
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