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| March 19, 2006 | Sunday | Safar 18, 1427 |
Commonwealth Games: India lead Asia medals charge
MELBOURNE, March 18: India led the medal charge for Asia at the Commonwealth Games Saturday, picking up golds in shooting and weightlifting as Malaysia’s Nicol David moved a step closer to lifting the squash title.
Samaresh Jung got the ball rolling with victory in the men’s 10m Air Pistol pairs event with Vivek Singh in a new Games record, a day after the duo was confined to the silver medal in the 50m pairs competition.
He returned shortly after with Ronak Pandit to take the 25m Standard Pistol pairs title with another Games record, lifting India’s gold medal tally on the ranges to five from the first 10 events.
Singapore’s Lip Meng Poh and Kwok Seng Soo narrowly missed making the podium in the air pistol pairs, edged into fourth.
Teenager Yumnam Chanu made it a triple treat for India by winning her country’s second weightlifting gold of the Games when she clinched a dominant victory in the women’s 58kg division.
The 19-year-old was successful with all six lifts to finish with a total of 185kg, comfortably ahead of Canada’s Emily Quarton and Australia’s Natasha Barker who both lifted 178kg.
“There is no real secret to our successes. But you need sincerity, hard work and your countrymen,” she said.
“I feel like I could have lifted more but I just did enough to win.”
Kunjurani Devi won India’s first weightlifting gold of these Games on Thursday with victory in the 48kg class.
Malaysia narrowly missed out in its second weightlifting gold here when Australia’s Benjamin Turner pipped veteran Muhammad Hidayat to win the men’s 69kg category. India’s Sudhir Kumar Chitradurga took bronze.
But the day belonged to Samaresh Jung who could win more medals in one more pairs and four singles events.
“I will take it one event at a time. All I will say is that I will try my hardest,” he said.
“My philosophy is simple. If I am good enough to win the gold I will not settle for a silver.”
Elsewhere, Malaysia’s Nicol David steered herself into the squash semi-finals in her quest to win her first ever Commonwealth singles gold, but she was given a stern test by England’s Tania Bailey.
The world number one won 9-6, 10-9, 9-3 to set up a last four showdown with Australia’s Nathalie Grinham.
“She was playing really well and I had to keep it tight and dig in. My aim was to keep her moving,” said the 22-year-old from Penang.
“But she was also going for her shots and became very relaxed.”
Singapore and India kept Asia’s flame alight in the women’s badminton team event and will meet each other in the semi-finals on Sunday. Canada and Australia are the other countries through.
In badminton, Malaysia and Sri Lanka made the mixed team quarter-finals while regional sluggers scored a series of wins in the preliminary rounds of the boxing competition.
But there was no joy in the swimming pool with India’s Rehan Poncha and Arjun Muralidharan failing to qualify for the men’s 200m backstroke semi-finals.
A similar fate met Sri Lanka’s Mayumi Raheem in the women’s 200m breaststroke.—Agencies
Medals table
G S B T
Australia 15 9 11 35
India 6 3 0 9
England 4 9 4 17
Scotland 3 1 3 7
Canada 2 7 4 13
New Zealand 2 3 2 7
Malaysia 1 0 2 3
South Africa 1 0 2 3
Sri Lanka 1 0 0 1
Bangladesh 0 1 0 1
Papua New Guinea 0 1 0 1
Wales 0 0 3 3
Singapore 0 0 2 2
Fiji 0 0 1 1
Isle Of Man 0 0 1 1
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