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New Delhi:
Indian athletics soared to a new high at the Commonwealth Games
here Tuesday with the women's quartet of Mandeep Kaur, Manjeet
Kaur, Sini Jose and Ashwini Chidananda winning the gold in the
4x400 metres relay, topping Monday's 1-2-3 showing by the women
shot putters.
The Indians clocked 3:27.77 seconds and left Nigeria (silver,
3:28.72) and England (3:29.51) behind.
In the morning, women shooters Heena Sidhu and Annu Raj Singh shot
the day's first gold, helping India surpass the highest count of
30 achieved eight years ago at the Manchester Games.
The two gold, which took the tally to 32, was topped by Indian men
beating England in tie breaker 5-4 - aggregate 8-7 (3-3) - to
enter the hockey final, making sure of a medal for the first time
since the discipline was included at the Kuala Lumpur Games in
1998.
At 2100 IST Tuesday, India's medal tally read: 32 gold, 25 silver
and 32 bronze for a total of 89. With 66 gold, 45 silver and 40
bronze, Australia remained table toppers. England were third with
30-50-38.
In badminton, India's Chetan Anand and Parupalli Kashyap lost
their semi-final matches and they now fight for the bronze while
Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa entered the women's doubles
final, thus making sure of at least silver.
Reigning table tennis champion Sharath Kamal and Soumyadeep Roy
made it to the men's singles final -- two Indians in the semis for
the first time. In the men's doubles, Sharath Kamal and Subhajit
Saha entered semi-finals while Mouma Das and Poulomi Ghatak are in
the semis.
At Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, India began the evening session on a
great note as both the men and women's 4x100 metres relay teams
won bronze. As the night wore on, Renjit Maheshwary won the men's
triple jump bronze with his personal best, bettering the national
record, to touch 17.07 metres. Gold went to Nigeria's Tosin Oke
(17.16) and Cameroon's Lucien Hugo Mamba Schlick (17.14).
Rahamatulla Molla, Suresh Sathya, Shameer Naseema Manzile and Md
Abdul Najeeb Qureshi finished third in the race with a timing of
38.89 seconds behind gold-winning England(38.74) and silver
Jamaica (38.79).
Geetha Satti, Shrabani nanda, P. K. Priya and Jyothi Hiriyur
Manjunath narrowly missed the silver in almost photo-finish in
45.25 behind gold medallists England (44.19) and silver Ghana
(45.24).
Kashinath Naik won the evening's third bronze in the men's
javelin. He sent the spear soaring to a distance of 74.29 metres.
Jarrod Bannister (81.71 metres) of Australia got the gold, while
new Zealander Stuart Farquhar (78.15 metres) won the silver.
At the Karni Singh range, World champion Tejaswini Sawant won the
silver in the women's 50-metre prone event and 'Goldfinger'
Samresh Jung and Chandrasekhar Kumar Chaudhary got the silver in
the men's 25-metre standard pistol pairs' event.
In the women's 10-metre air pistol, India, Australia and Canada
were tied for the gold with 759 points each. Canada got the bronze
on the basis of lesser number of perfect 10s - they shot 14. India
and Australia had 21 each. India bagged the gold on the basis of
count-back.
A second dope case, also involving a Nigerian athlete, has been
found, Commonwealth Games Federation Mike Fennell told reporters.
"We have had a second anti-doping code violation. Nigeria's Samuel
Okon, a 110-metre hurdler, has tested positive for the same
Methylhexaneamine substance," Fennell said.
Fennell announced Monday that Nigerian athlete Osayemi Oludamola,
who was awarded gold in 100 metres race after Australian Sally
Pearson was disqualified for false start, had tested positive for
Methylhexaneamine substance.
She has been provisionally suspended. A decision on withdrawing
her gold medal will be taken after the results of test of her B
sample are received.
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