GUWAHATI: Pakistan’s Mohammad Nooh Dastagir competes in the weightlifting super heavyweight category at the South Asian Games on Tuesday.—AP
GUWAHATI: Pakistan’s Mohammad Nooh Dastagir competes in the weightlifting super heavyweight category at the South Asian Games on Tuesday.—AP

GUWAHATI: Bronze was again the order of the day for Pakistan with a little sprinkling of gold as Mohammad Nooh Dastagir Butt won the +105kg weightlifting event at the South Asian Games on Tuesday.

Pakistan won six bronze medals, following the seven they won on Monday, with Nooh’s gold and a silver for Shakeel Ahmed in the hammer throw pushing their total medals tally to 37 (5-12-20).

They remained third in the standings behind hosts India’s staggering 122 medals (76-36-10) and Sri Lanka’s 87 (17-37-33).

Shakeel’s silver was the only highlight for Pakistan at the Indira Gandhi Athletics Stadium as the athletics events kicked off with Pakistan’s woes in track and field showed again with just one medal to show for after nine events were decided.

Of the six bronze medals, swimmer Bisma Khan was involved in two of them. She took third place in the women’s 50m backstroke before being involved in the women’s freestyle 4x200m team.

Cyclist Nisar Ahmed was also third in the men’s 100km individual road race while Mohammad Waleed Ajmal grabbed a wushu bronze with the other two bronze medals coming from team events — men’s badminton and men’s volleyball — which had been decided on Sunday.

Nooh became Pakistan’s fifth gold medallist at the regional extravaganza following swimmer Lianna Swan, wrestlers Mohammad Inam and Zaman Anwar and squash player Nasir Iqbal.

He had a total lift of 360kg (160 + 200) to beat India’s Gurdeep Singh by 15kg.

Nooh’s gold was followed by Nisar’s bronze with Jeevan Silva of Sri Lanka winning the 100km road race in 2 hours 25 minutes and 38.65 seconds.

At the Dr Zakir Hussain Aquatics Complex, Bisma finished third in 31.95 seconds in the 50m backstroke which was clinched by Kimiko Raheem of Sri Lanka in a new Games record of 29.75 seconds.

Bisma was then part of the team which included Sawn, her sister Kiran and Areeba Shaikh as they clocked 9:48.04 to finish behind India and Sri Lanka in the women’s 4x200m freestyle.

SHAKEEL SETTLES FOR SILVER

Shakeel settled for second place in the hammer throw, his throw of 63.67 metres, narrowly behind Indian gold medallist Neeraj Kumar’s 66.14.

But Pakistan could make little impression in other events of the blue riband athletics competition as hosts India led the way with five golds and Sri Lanka claiming four.

Pakistan’s Zagham Iqbal and Liaquat Ali finished third and second respectively in the men’s 100m heats but couldn’t finish on the podium in the final which was won by Himasha Eashan of Sri Lanka.

Another Sri Lankan, R Rathnayaka took the women’s title.

Pakistan’s badminton players suffered similar disappointment as Zagham and Liaquat, with Murad Ali losing to India’s HS Prannoy in the men’s singles quarter-finals while Khizra fell to another Indian, Ruthvika Shivani, in the women’s singles.

Azeem and Irfan lost their men’s doubles quarter-final to Indians Sumeeth Reddy and Manu Atri while Shabar Hussain and Saima Waqas fell to Manu Atri and Ashwini Ponnappa in the mixed doubles.

Pakistan, though, will expect their wushu team to avenge their defeats in badminton with two Indo-Pak finals on Wednesday.

Zahoor Ahmed overcame Amila Prasanga of Sri Lanka in the semi-finals to set up a 52kg category showdown against Uchit Sharma while Maaz Khan will square off against Mukesh Choudhury after defeating Bangladesh’s Anisur Rahman.

Syed Maratib, meanwhile, already overcame an Indian rival in Arun Nagar when he reached the 65kg final against Shekib Haidari of Afghanistan while Rashid Minhas reached the final of the 75kg category.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2016

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