Gymnast Dipa Karmakar produced a golden show in the individual apparatus events of the 34th National Games' gymnastics competition here on Sunday making a clean sweep of gold medals at the Ganpat Rai Stadium.
The 17-year-old showed enough grace and fluency on four apparatus — vault, uneven bars, beam and floor — to give her State Tripura five gold medals, including the overall crown.
Her show even overshadowed India's eminent male gymnast, Ashish Kumar of Uttar Pradesh, who was the best among men with one gold, two silvers and a bronze medal haul.
Ashish, who won a silver and bronze at the Commonwealth Games and first-ever gymnastic bronze medal from floor exercise at the Guangzhou Asian Games, annexed the overall gold medal for men as well.
Outstanding show
The dental surgery student from Patiala, Heena Sidhu, produced a top class show in the 10m air pistol for women with two new records. Her qualifying score of 386 upstaged Sonia Rai's 383 achieved at Guwahati and her final score of 489.4 removed Annu Raj Singh's previous best of 481.8 set in 2007.
“It was an outstanding show,'' pointed out National coach Prof. Sunny Thomas. “Her 103.4 points in the final is world standard.”
Subedar Major Vijay Kumar, arguably the best pistol expert in India, set a meet mark in the 25m rapid fire event with a score of 581 points which improved his own record of 578 set at the last Games.
Yet, the rule of the competition in this event was such he was eliminated before the podium finishers were identified. His teammate Gurpreet Singh took gold with a score of 572 (qualifier) and 29 (final).
Ch. Rameshori Devi of Manipur picked up her third gold in cycling winning the 3000m team pursuit along with Suchitra, Helen and Sunita.
Services took the men's 4000m team pursuit. Mahitha Mohan of Kerala won her third silver to her two gold medals won earlier.
Goa and Punjab moved into the semifinals of the men's football event. In the final league games, Goa and Jharkhand drew 1-1 and Punjab edged past Delhi 2-1. Both teams ended on five points and Goa topped the group on better goal difference.
Bengal and Services are in contention for semifinals from the other group.
The results:
Artistic gymnastics men's individual: Floor exercise: 1. Pawan Bhambure (Ser) 13.72 points, 2. Ziaur Rahman (Ser) 13.60, 3. Ashish Kumar (UP) 13.25. Pommel horse: 1. Partha Mondal (Jha) 13.47, 2. Ashish Kumar (UP) 12.57, 3. Raja Roy (Ser) 12.22. Roman rings: 1. Ashish Kumar (U.P.) 13.82, 2. Rajshekhar Reddy (AP) 13.60, 3. Rakesh Patra (Ser) 13.57. Vault: 1. Ziaur Rahman (Ser) 14.67, 2. Ashish Kumar (UP) 14.20, 3. Rajshekhar Reddy (AP) 13.92.
Parallel Bars: 1. Raja Roy (Ser) 13.12, 2. Mayank Srivastava (UP) 13.05, 3. Aditya Singh Rana (UP) 12.85. Horizontal bar: 1. Ikrar Hasan (UP) 13.40, 2. Rakesh Patra (Ser) 13.37, 3. K.V. Suresh (AP) 13.05.
Women: Table vault: 1. Dipa Karmakar (Tri) 13.45, 2. Pranita Nayak (Ben) 13.16, 3. B. Aruna Reddy (AP) 12.87. Uneven bars: 1. Dipa 13.45, 2. Vandita Raval (Mah) 0.70, 3. Meenakshi (Pun) 9.85. Balancing beam: 1. Dipa 13.70, 2. Debjani Samanta (Ben) 11.22, 3. B. Aruna Reddy (AP) 10.75. Floor: 1. Dipa 12.65, 2. Meenakshi (Pun) 12.40, 3. Debjani (Ben) 11.85.
Shooting: Men: 25m rapid fire pistol: 1. Gurpreet Singh (Ser) 572 (q), 29 (f), 2. Harpreet Singh (Har) 564, 24, 3. Mahendar Singh (MP) 566, 20. 4. Vijay Kumar (Ser) 581 (NMR, old 578 by Vijay Kumar, 07). Team: 1. Services (Vijay, Gurpreet, Pemba Tamang) 1720, 2. Haryana 1680, 3. MP 1649.
Women: 10m air pistol: 1. Henna Sidhu (Pun) 396 (q), 489.4 (f), (NMRs, old 383 (q) by Sonia Rai, 07), 481.8 (f) by Annu Raj Singh, 07), 2. Rahi Jivan Sarnobat (Mah) 380, 479.4, 3. Sonia Rai (HP) 378, 477.8. Team: 1. Punjab (Heena, Harveen, Lakhbir) 1135, 2. Maharashtra 122, 3. Haryana 1120.
Cycling: Men's 4000 team pursuit: 1. Services (Atul, Satbir, Vinod Malik, Sombir) 4:43.635, 2. Punjab 4:49.104, 3. Rajasthan 4:57.710.
Women: 3000m team pursuit: 1. Manipur (Rameshori, Suchitra, Helen, Sunita) 4:04.234, 2. Kerala 4:15.176, 3. Punjab.
