Its medal rush for India! Athletes grab each medal coming its way in Commonwealth Games

Gold Coast, April 13: Another victory in India’s coat with Seema Punia returning home with her fourth successive Commonwealth Games medal as she and Navjeet Kaur Dhillon opened India’s account in the athletic events at the Carrara stadium here on Thursday. Besides this, India’s first boxing medal of the 2018 Commonwealth Games has come from Naman Tanwar, who was defeated in his 91kg semi-final by Australia’s Jason Whateley on Friday to settle for bronze.

 

The 34-year-old, settled in Meerut, was far behind Australian Dani Stevens, who had pushed the Indian to second place in Glasgow 2014. And then, she failed to touch her season’s best of 61.05m achieved at the Federation Cup in Patiala in early March.

Navjeet looked out of sorts initially but the 2014 World junior medallist came good in the sixth round to get to a distance of 57.43m and to deny New Zealand’s Sositina Hakeai, a place on the podium.

This is the fifth straight time an Indian has won a medal in this discipline, with Seema getting four after Neelam Jaswant Singh won the first in Manchester 2002.

While Tanwar’s road to the semi-finals saw him open his CWG campaign with a unanimous verdict (30-26, 30-25, 30-26, 30-24, 30-24) against Tanzania’s Haruna Mhando to progress into the men’s 91kg quarter-finals, where on Tuesday he beat Samoa’s Frank Masoe 5-0 to progress to today’s semi-final.

The Gold Coast Games are Tanwar’s first major senior event, and winning a medal by reaching the semi-finals is testament to the teenager’s prospects as his career progresses.

President Ram Nath Kovind tweeted congratulating the rising star for their uprising talent and making the country proud.