37th National Games: Swimmers Nina Venkatesh, Virdhawal Khade excel; Haryana, Services close in on leaders Maharashtra

Panaji (Goa): Nina Venkatesh of Karnataka won her fourth gold medal of the Games claiming the Women’s 50M Butterfly with a new Games record while Virdhawal Khade did the double, adding the Men’s 50M Butterfly to his tally in the swimming competition of the 37th National Games here.

Nina stopped the clock at 27.70 seconds to win the gold ahead of Manavi Varma of Karnataka (27.90) and Rutuja Khade of Maharashtra (28.38 secs) in the women’s 50m Butterfly.

Virdhawal, who had won the 50m freestyle, edged out his state mate Mihir Ambre (24.67s) and Kerala’s Sajan Prakash (24.78s) to win the gold with a new Games record time of 24.60s.

One of the most consistent swimmers in the circuit, Srihari Nataraj of Karnataka won gold in the 100m Backstroke event with a new Games record of 55.59s. Rishabh Das of Maharashtra (57.37s) won the silver while Karnataka’s Siva Sridhar won the bronze with a timing of 57.41s.

In the women’s 100m Backstroke, Maharashtra’s Palk Joshi won gold stopping the clock at 1:05.29s. Goa’s Sanjana Prabhugaonker won silver (1:05.73 s) and Ridhima Veerendra Kumar of Karnataka won bronze (1:05.86 s).

Maharashtra now leads the standings with 60 gold, 48 silver and 53 bronze medals and still has a sizeable advantage over defending champions Services Sports Control Board, who after a slow start now have 37 gold, 13 silver and bronze each. Haryana is currently third with a total of 85 medals, including 31 gold.

Haryana won three of the six gold medals that were decided in wresting on Thursday at the Campal Sports Village with SSCB, Chandigarh and Madhya Pradesh winning the other three.

At the Athletics Stadium, Arun AB of Services hogged the limelight on the penultimate day of the track and field competitions by erasing the men’s triple jump record. His gold medal performance of 16.79m was better than Praveen Chithravel’s 16.68m record set last year in Gujarat.

Srabani Nanda of Odisha and Abhin B. Devadiga of Karnataka clinched the gold medals in the 200m women’s and men’s sprints respectively. Srabani (23.69 s) pipped Punjab’s Kamaljeet Kaur (23.84 s) and favourite Jyoti Yarraji of Andhra Pradesh (23.95 s) to win the gold.

In the men’s category Karnataka’s Abhin stopped the clock at 20.89s to win the gold while statemate, K.V Shashikanth won silver (20.97s) and Odisha’s Animesh Kujur won bronze (20.99s).

Chanda K.M of Delhi won the gold in the Women’s 800m adding to the silver she won in 1500m. She completed the two-lap race in a timing of 2:01.74 s ahead of Yamuna Ladkat of Maharashtra and Pooja of Haryana.

Anirban Ghosh of West Bengal and Archana Kamath of Karnataka clinched the men’s and women’s singles gold medals in table tennis while Maharashtra picked two gold medals from mixed and women’s doubles at the Campal Multipurpose Indoor Stadium.

Third seed Ghosh blanked fifth seed Yashansh Malik of Delhi 4-0 men’s singles final while Archana defeated Maharashtra’s Diya Chitale 4-1. Diya, however, can take pride in winning gold in the mixed doubles, combining with seasoned campaigner Sanil Shetty to beat West Bengal’s Ankur Bhattacharya and Kaushani Nath in straight games.

In the cycling competitions being held at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi, there were no upsets as Indian internationals won all six gold medals on offer. Meenakshi of Haryana won two gold medals, winning the 15 Km Scratch and 3 KM Individual Pursuit races.

Naman Kapil of Punjab 15 Km Scratch Race while Meenakshi of Haryana won the 10 Km Scratch Race. David Beckham of Andaman & Nicobar Islands edged out his national team compatriots Rojit Singh and Venkappa Kengalagutti to win the gold in the 1000 M Individual Time Trial and also win the union territory’s first medal of the games. In the Women’s 500 M Individual Time Trial Delhi’s Triyasha Paul won the gold.

–IANS