Former World No. 1 archer Deepika Kumari hogged the limelight on the 12th day of the 37th National Games winning two gold medals and a silver at the Goa Engineering College, Farmagudi while Olympian Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar once again underlined his supremacy in 50m Rifle 3-position shooting event in Manderem.
Table toppers Maharashtra, third-placed Haryana and Assam shared the other gold medals in the recurve category as the archery events came to an end.
With three more days left for the closing ceremony, Maharashtra remains on top of the medal tally with 68 gold medals while Services Sports Control Board and Haryana are in second and third positions with 54 and 50 gold medals respectively and maintain the pressure on the table toppers.
Deepika began her medal rush with a gold in the women’s individual category and later teamed up with Mrinal Chauhan to win the gold in the mixed team category. She also helped Jharkhand win the silver in the team event where they lost to Haryana in the shootout.
In the shooting competition at the Manderem Range, Tomar pipped Niraj Kumar of SSCB to win the gold in the Men’s 50 M Rifle 3 Positions. SSCB Chain Singh, who had topped the qualifying, won the bronze.
In the Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol, Vijayveer Sidhu representing Punjab clinched the gold while Haryana’s Anish Bhanwala and Adarsh Singh won the silver and bronze respectively.
In the judo competitions at Campal Games Village, Delhi won three out of the eight gold medals on offer while Manipur won two. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab won the other three golds.
In the morning session, Punjab and Odisha shared the coastal beach sprint mixed team event gold while Madhya Pradesh bagged the Women’s kayak quadruples.
At the Dona Paula beach, Suman Devi of Haryana won gold in the Coastal Beach Sprint women’s event ahead of Telangana’s Beeda Hemalatha and Maharashtra’s Nikita Darekar. In the men’s category, SSCB’s Salman Khan pipped Olympian rower Dattu Bhokanal of Maharashtra to win the gold while Odisha’s Saurabh Kumar won the bronze.
Meanwhile, SSCB beat Kerala 4-2 in the first semifinal of the football competition played at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Fatorda to book their place in the final. They will now face Manipur who beat Punjab 2-1 in the second semifinal.
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