With 68 golds, Services tops medal tally

Dehradun, February 13

Services continued its dominance in the National Games as it topped the medal tally at the 38th edition in Uttarakhand, achieving the feat for the fifth time in the last six Games, after a rather low key final day of competitions here on Thursday.

Services bagged nine more medals on Thursday, including three gold, for a Games total haul of 121 (68 gold, 26 silver, 27 bronze). It had finished second behind Maharashtra in the 2023 edition in Goa.

Before that, it had topped the medal tally in four successive National Games (2007, 2011, 2015 and 2022).

Maharashtra won more medals than Services with 198 (54 gold, 71 silver, 73 bronze) but the lesser number of gold meant that it ended at second spot.

Even Haryana got more medals than Services with 153 (48 gold, 47 silver, 58 bronze) but had to be content with a third-place finish.

Karnataka (34 gold, 18 silver, 28 bronze) and Madhya Pradesh (33 gold, 26 silver, 23 bronze) finished at fourth and fifth positions respectively.

Tamil Nadu (27 gold, 30 silver, 34 bronze), Uttarakhand (24 gold, 35 silver, 43 bronze), West Bengal (16 gold, 13 silver, 18 bronze), Punjab (15 gold, 20 silver, 31 bronze) and Delhi (15 gold, 18 silver, 29 bronze) rounded off the top-10.

Curtains will be brought down on the 38th edition of the National Games, which began on January 28, with the closing ceremony to be held in Haldwani on Friday with Union Home Minister Amit Shah in attendance.

In hockey competitions in Haridwar, Haryana took revenge of their defeat in last edition as they beat Madhya Pradesh 4-1 in the final to win the women’s gold medal.

Jharkhand defeated Maharashtra 2-1 to bag the bronze medal.

In the 2023 National Games in Goa, MP had beaten Haryana 3-0 in shootout after the two sides were locked goal-less in the regulation time In the men’s event, Karnataka registered a hard-fought 3-2 victory over Uttar Pradesh to win the gold. Maharashtra beat Punjab 1-0 to clinch the bronze medal.

West Bengal and Haryana shared the honours on the final day of gymnastics with two gold each in Dehradun.

Maharashtra, however, topped the gymnastics medal tally with 24 medals, including 12 gold in the competition held over six days. West Bengal was second with 12 medals, including 5 gold.

Haryana’s Yogeshwar Singh won two gold medals by winning the men’s artistic vaulting table event and horizontal bar. He scored 13.500 points for the vaulting table event gold while he grabbed 12.367 points in the horizontal bar.

West Bengal’s Ritu Das clinched the gold medal in the women’s artistic gymnastics balance beam event with 11.367 points, while team-mate Pranati Das took the top prize in the women’s floor exercise event.

Odisha’s Tokyo Olympian Pranati Nayak settled for a bronze medal in the balance beam event.

Maharashtra’s Parina Rahul Madanpotra secured the gold medal in the rhythmic gymnastics clubs event with a score of 25.60. In the rhythmic gymnastics ribbon event, Muskan Rana of Jammu and Kashmir and Samyukta Prasen Kale of Maharashtra shared the gold medal, both scoring 25.550 points.

In the parallel bars event, Odisha’s Rakesh Kumar Patra emerged triumphant, scoring 12.600 points.

In table tennis, Maharashtra’s Jaish Amit Modi registered an upset win (7-11 6-11 11-7 11-8 14-12 6-11 11-6) over Commonwealth Games medallist Sathiyan Gnanasekaran of Tamil Nadu to clinch the men’s singles gold medal.