PANJIM: Hosts Goa had a lot to cheer for as their Modern Pentathlon team clinched a gold, silver and bronze medals while a silver and two bronze from Pencak Silat on Thursday.
Babu Gaonkar, a 22-year-old tribal from Netravali village in Sanguem, clinched the gold medal in the Men’s Laser Run category with a timing of 12 minutes 26.27 seconds to kick off the medal hunt at Ponda.
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This was Goa’s first medal of the Games after coming close on a couple of occasions. The son of a tractor mechanic, then teamed up with Seeta Gosavi to bag the mixed relay silver and the Goa women’s laser run team won the bronze medal.
In the mixed team relay, Gaonkar and Gosavi set a timing of 16 minutes 1.50 seconds to finish behind Anju and Ravi of Haryana, who clocked a time of 15 minutes 23.91seconds.
Pencak silat players then ended the day on a high with Prajakta Bhekane and Madhu Chauhan winning the silver medal in Artistic Ganda Female category. Haryana’s Simran and Sonia won the gold while Manipur’s Thokchom Chanu and Thingbaijam Chanu took the bronze.
There was something to cheer for Goa from the Netball arena as well with their men’s team registering a second successive win in Fast5 category to assure themselves a semi-final spot.
Olympian fencer CA Bhavani Devi, representing Tamil Nadu, defended her gold medal in the women’s sabre individual event after beating S Sowmiya of Kerala 15-5 in the final.
Devi had won gold in the same event in the 2022 National Games in Gujarat.
Shiksha Ballouria of Himachal Pradesh and Jagmeet Kaur of Punjab won the bronze medals.
In the women’s laser run, Ujjala of Haryana clinched the gold ahead of Yoginee Umakant Salunke of Maharashtra and Neha Yadav of Madhya Pradesh.
At the Campal Sports Village, Popy Hazarika of Assam clinched the gold in the women’s weightlifting 59kg category with a total lift of 191kg (86kg snatch, 105kg C&J). Davinder Kaur of Punjab won the silver with a total lift of 182kg while M Deepanayomi of Andhra Pradesh lifted 180 kg to take the bronze.
In the men’s 67kg category, Mizoram’s Lalhunthara lifted a total of 281kg to clinch the gold, edging out Subhash Lahre (280kg) of Services by just a kilogram. Arunachal Pradesh’s Bengia Tani won bronze with a lift of 277kg.
In gymnastics at the Peddem Multipurpose Indoor Stadium, Yogeshwar Singh of Haryana clinched gold followed by Sidharth Verma of Uttar Pradesh and Gaurav Kumar of Services who won silver and bronze in men’s all-round individual event.
Pranati Nayak, representing Odisha, won the gold in the women’s all-round individual event held late on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the uncertainty over the holding of handball competitions ended on Thursday after the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) named eight States, including host Goa, to participate in the men’s and women’s events.
Eight men’s and women’s teams were also named for the beach handball competition.
A letter to that effect was issued by Amitabh Sharma, who is the chairman of Games Technical Conduct Committee, and appointed by the IOA.
The participating teams for the handball competition were based on the rankings of 2021 National Championships. The participating teams for the beach handball competition were based on the rankings of 2015 National Games in Kerala.
According to the letter, the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in its order dated October 16, 2023, following a petition, did not award the responsibility of hosting the handball sport in the 37th National Games to any federation and said “the question as which body would be the national sports federation is yet to be finally decided and thus the said player cannot be accepted at this stage”.
The IOA has also requested the SAI to provide a list of qualified technical officials to conduct the handball competitions in the National Games.
