Big Brother continues to rule the roost

Guwahati, FEBRUARY 7

India’s swimmers, wrestlers and weightlifters won the bulk of gold medals on offer and maintained their supremacy on the second successive day of the 12th South Asian Games.

India, with a total count of 42, (27 gold, 12 silver and 3 bronze medals) is on top of the medals tally. The second spot continued to be held by Sri Lanka with a total of 37 medals (8 gold, 17 silver, 12 bronze). India’s swimmers scooped 10 medals in all — including 4 gold, 5 silver and 1 bronze. The wrestlers added 4 gold and a silver, while the weightlifters snared 3 gold medals. The swimmers, who had fetched 3 gold, 5 silver and 3 bronze medals yesterday, once again created a splash with Sandeep Sejwal picking his second gold of the Games. As many as five Games record were created out of the seven events today with the Indians accounting for three of them, including Sejwal.

India, however, suffered a reverse as well with ace swimmer Veerdhawal Khade losing the men’s 50m freestyle gold to promising Sri Lankan teenager Matthew Abeysinghe, who grabbed his third gold of the Games, the most by any swimmer so far.

Sejwal added another yellow metal in the 100m breaststroke in a New Games Record time of 1:03.14s, bettering his own mark of 1:05.01s, which he had set in 2010.

Wrestler Dahiya wins gold

The wrestlers stranglehold over their opponents was almost complete today.

Amit Dhankar (70kg), Mamta (53kg), Manju Kumari (58kg) and Pradeep (61kg) picked up the gold medals in their respective events. The lone silver for Indian in wrestling came through Gopal Yadav (86kg) who lost to Mohd Imam of Pakistan in the final.

Indian lifters bagged three more gold medals today. Saraswati Rout (women’s 58kg), Sambo Lapung (men’s 69kg) and Ajay Singh (men’s 77kg) won the gold medal today.

Indias have won six gold medals in weightlifting out of the total eight on offer in two days. Also continuing their fine show were the cyclists, who added a gold, a silver and a bronze medal today.

Indian women shuttlers also began their campaign with an easy 3-0 win over Nepal. PV Sindhu beat Sara Devi Tamang 21-2 21-8 in 15 minutes. Ruthvika Gadde breezed past Nangsal Tamang 21-6 21-2 in 15 minutes to make it 2-0 for the hosts. Meanwhile in men’s event, India beat Afghanistan 3-0 with Ajay Jayram, HS Prannoy, Akshay Dewalkar and Pranay Chopra securing facile victories to top Group A.

India beat Bangladesh 4-1

In hockey, India beat Bangladesh 4-1 in their opening match. India play Pakistan in the marquee match of the Games. In another match, Pakistan beat Sri Lanka 3-0. The Indian women’s hockey team mauled Nepal 24-0 in a completely lopsided round robin league match.

Ghosal, Sandhu lose

In squash, Saurav Ghosal lost (4-11, 5-11, 12-10, 5-11) to Farhan Zaman of Pakistan in the men’s semifinals. Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu was trailing at 7-11 14-12 7-11 6-6 when he called injury time out in an ill-tempered match. It is not yet known whether Sandhu would be fit to play against Ghosal for the bronze-medal match tomorrow. — PTI