Omkar Otari continued India’s power-packed performance in the weightlifting arena, clinching a bronze in the 69kg category to take the country’s medal tally in the sport to six on the third day of the 20th Commonwealth Games here.
Besides, Rajwinder Kaur bagged a bronze in women’s +78kg judo competition to add to the three medals that India have won in the sport.
With seven more medals, India took their overall medals tally to 17 with five gold, seven silver and five bronze medals and were placed fifth on the medals table.
Australia are at top with 50 medals, including 17 golds.
Hosts Scotland are third with 25 medals out of which 11 are yellow metal.
Among other Indians in fray, star squash player Saurav Ghosal notched up a hard-fought 3-2 (8-11, 7-11, 11-6, 11-8, 11-6) win over New Zealand’s Campbell Grayson to enter the semifinals of men’s singles.
Ghosal thus became the first Indian to reach the singles semifinals since the sport was introduced in the Games programme in 1998.
However, it was heartbreak for Dipika Pallikal, who went down 11-8, 2-11, 9-11, 6-11 to Alison Waters of England in the quarterfinals.
Women paddlers miss bronze The Indian men's table tennis team, meanwhile, blanked hosts Scotland 3-0 to reach the semifinals.
Meanwhile, Indian women paddlers lost their 2014 Commonwealth Games team bronze medal match to Australia 1-3 at the Scotstoun Table Tennis Centre here on Sunday.
After taking a 2-1 lead, 2010 silver medallists India lost the next two ties — doubles and singles — to return home empty-handed. India’s Shamini Kumaresan lost the first singles match to Ziyu Zhang 5-11, 11-2, 6-11, 9-11. Manika Batra tied the best-of-five rubber 1-1 by beating Jian Fang Lay in the second singles match 11-5, 8-11, 11-8, 11-7.
Madhurika Suhas Patkar and Kumaresan combine worked extremely hard to beat Miao Miao and Jian Fang in the doubles tie. The Indian pair twice took the lead — winning the first and third game — but the Australian team came back strongly each time to bring level the scores at 2-2.
Miao and Jian carried the momentum in to the decisive fifth game, taking a 7-4 lead. Indian duo didn’t give up to bring the gap down to 7-8 but the Australian team held on to win the game 11-7 and the match 19-21, 11-3, 9-11, 11-4, 11-7. In the third singles tie, Ziyu Zhang got the better of Madhurika 3-2 (11-9, 5-11, 8-11, 11-8, 11-9).
Sindhu loses
In badminton, P V Sindhu suffered a three-game loss against Michelle Li in the women's singles but the Indian team still managed to advance to the semifinals of the mixed team championship after defeating Canada 3-1 here.
Silver medallists at the 2010 Delhi Games, India were leading 2-0 after the first two matches, courtesy the winning start by mixed doubles combo of Kidambi Srikanth and Jwala Gutta and men's singles player Parupalli Kashyap.
However, Hong Kong-born Michelle then stunned Sindhu 15-21, 22-20, 21-17 in an hour-long women's singles match to reduce the margin.
But the men's doubles pair of Pranaav Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar made sure there were no more hiccups as they notched up a 21-15, 19-21, 21-13 win over Adrian Liu and Derrick Ng in a 49-minute match.
In Judo, Sahil Pathania (upto 100 kg men) and Jina Devi Chongtham (upto 78 kg women) and Parikshit Kumar (+100 Kg) could not earn India medals after losing in the bronze medal contest.
Apurvi bags gold Apurvi Chandela gave a stunning exhibition of skill and concentration to clinch a gold medal while Ayonika Paul and Prakash Nanjappa claimed a silver each as shooters added three more medals to India’s kitty on the third day of competitions.
21-year-old Chandela was the star performer by taking the honour in the women’s 10 m air rifle event with a score of 206.7 to provide the second gold medal from the shooting arena after Abhinav Bindra’s swansong gold medal effort on Friday.
Ayonika Paul, 21, also turned the spotlight on herself by bagging the silver medal in the same event while Nanjappa had to be content with a silver, narrowly missing out on the yellow metal due to a lapse of concentration. India logged another pair of medals in women's 25-metre pistol. Rahi won the event, with Anisa finishing second.
Repacholi won the gold with a total of 199.5 while Prakash scored 198.2. England’s 60-year-old Michel Gault got the bronze.
