PANJIM: Goa’s wait for the first medal in the 37th National Games was extended by another day as both their men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics teams finished sixth while the Netball team swere knocked out in the group stage despite punching above their weight. Reaching the knockout stage was always going to be difficult for Goa’s Netball teams. But to their credit, the men’s team put up a fighting display against Maharashtra and then against defending champions Haryana to lose by an identical scoreline of 56-52.
Against Haryana, the local outfit were locked at 25-25 at half time, raising hopes of an upset. But that was not to be as the experienced Haryana team started strong after the break and the hosts were then left playing catch up.
At the Manohar Parrikar Indoor Stadium in Navelim, Goa’s basketball team ran Delhi close in Pool A before going down 61-81 while the women were beaten 60-34 by Uttar Pradesh.
In the gymnastic competition, Goa’s women’s artistic team finished sixth with a total score of 128.75 while the men scored a total of 218.50 points to finish on the same spot in standings. Meanwhile, Services Sports Promotion Board and West Bengal expectedly bagged the men’s and women’s artistic team gold medals at the Peddem Indoor Sports Complex on Monday.
The Services team comprising Abhijeet Kumar, Anas Ali Shaikh, Gaurav Kumar, Rakesh Kumar Patra, Saif Sadik Tamboli and Tapeswaranath Das scored a total of 249.35 points, over seven points better than second placed Uttar Pradesh (242.10). Haryana bagged the bronze medal with a combined score of 240.35.
Later in the day, West Bengal once again proved that they are the leaders in artistic gymnastics in
women as they scored a total of 175.90 points to grab the state’s first gold in the Games. Maharashtra took the silver medal with a total of 166.95 while Uttar Pradesh were third with 142.30 points, having a point deducted from the overall score.
With the official inauguration of the Games still a few days away, four gold medals have been decided so far with Karnataka (men’s team badminton) and Assam (women’s team badminton) sharing the other two.
Five more gold medals on offer on Tuesday in individual badminton events at the Dr Shyama Prasad
Mukherjee complex. Former men’s singles champion Sourabh Varma of Madhya Pradesh will look to add another gold to his tally after getting the better of Maharashtra’s Harsheel Dani 19-21, 21-14, 21-17 in the semi-final son Monday.
It was Dani who started strong opening up a sizeable lead in the opening game but Varma clawed back with his trademark tenacity. However, the Maharashtra shuttler did find another gear to close the game.
The second game was a much closer affair till Dani slipped while going for a tap and seemed to have strained his right knee. It took time for him to once again find his rhythm and Varma pounced on the opportunity like only he can. He took the second game rather easily and had opened up a 15-5 lead in the decider. Even a late fightback wasn’t enough for Dani to turn things around and Varma closed the 57-minute encounter on his second match point.
The 30-year-old will now face Telangana’s M Tharun, who got the better of second seed M Mithun 12-21, 21-14, 22-20 in an hour and seven minutes.
In women’s singles semi-finals, Uttarakhand’s Aditi Bhatt saved two match points in the second game to beat M Meghana Reddy of Telangana 7-21, 24-22, 21-16. She will now face national champion Anupama Upadhayaya of Haryana, who packed off top seed Aakarshi Kashyap of Chattisgarh 21-13, 21-17.
In the basketball competition that started on Monday at the Manohar Parikar stadium in Navelim,
favourites Punjab men rode on a strong performance from Kanwar Gurbaz Sandhu (22 points) and Prince Pal Singh (19 points) to defeat Telangana 87-57 in their opening Pool A clash. Nathan Abraham Billa top scored for Telangana with 21 points.
