Two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar spearheaded a sparkling show as Indian grapplers dominated the wrestling arena with three gold medals after the shooters ended their campaign on a rousing note with five more podium finishes on sixth day of competitions in the 20th Commonwealth Games on Tuesday.
Sushil expectedly bagged gold in men’s 75kg freestyle category while Amit Kumar won the yellow metal in men’s 57kg.
In the women’s section, Vinesh Phogat finished on top in 48kg format.
Rajeev Tomar, however, had to settle for a silver in the men’s 125 kg freestyle event after going down to Canada’s Korey Jarvis 0-3 in the finals.
Late in the evening, Chandrakant Mali clinched the bronze medal in men’s 94kg weightlifting to add to the country’s overall tally in the sport in the ongoing edition.
Mali, who totalled 338, lifted 146kg, 150kg and 153kg in three attempts in snatch and 183kg, 188kg and 194 kg in clean and jerk to finish third on the podium.
A dominant performance Earlier, Indian shooters continued to dominate with Sanjeev Rajput and Harpreet Singh clinching a silver medal each but there was heartbreak for Olympic silver winner Vijay Kumar. Vijay shot a total of 555 points in the two qualification rounds to finish seventh and miss out on a place in the final round.
Star marksman Gagan Narang had to be content with a bronze while Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Lajja Gauswami, too, finished third on the podium, as the Indian shooting team finished with an impressive tally of 17 medals (4, 9, 4) from the Games.
The 31-year-old Sushil asserted his class as he won all his four bouts of the day quite comfortably.
In the gold-medal bout against Qamar Abbas of Pakistan, Sushil had an easy outing. Even before one could blink, the contest was over as the Indian pinned down his rival to clinch the gold with a 8-0 scoreline in under two minutes.
Amit Kumar defeated Ebikweminomo Welson of Nigeria 6-2 in his final bout.
Vinesh Phogat was down 2-4 in the first round and was facing a tough challenge from her English opponent. But she managed to earn two points to tie it at 4-4 before she could put her rival down again to bag another two just in time to wrap up the opening round 6-4.
Tomar failed to do much in his gold-medal bout, as he failed to earn even a single point. His Canadian rival, meanwhile, could snatch a few technical points in his favour to eke out a narrow 3-0 win and bag the gold.
Boxing In boxing, Indian pugilist L Sarita Devi advanced to the quarterfinals after winning in women’s 57-60 kg opening bout but it was curtains for defending champion Manoj Kumar, who lost his last 8 bout.
Sumit Sangwan too lost his quarterfinals bout to David Nyika of New Zealand 1-2.
Sarita knocked out Nigeria’s Kehinde Obareh 2-0 in the last 16 clash.
For Manoj Kumar, in the men’s lightweight 64kg bout, the Games ended rather early as he proved to be no match for England’s Samuel Maxwell, who registered a 3-0 victory over his opponent from India.
Shuttlers Kidambi Srikanth and R M V Gurusaidutt won their respective matches to enter the men’s singles Round of 32. Srikanth had an easy Round of 64 outing as he took just 15 minutes to defeat St. Helena’s Duane March 21-3, 21-4 at the Emirates Arena.
Gurusaidutt also had an easy match as he posted a 21-5, 21-12 win in 24 minutes against Benjamin Pui Hun Li of the Isle of Man.
