It’s raining medals for India in Commonwealth Games, Sealing gold in Table Tennis, Weightlifting and Air Pistol

Gold Coast, April 9: Scripting history by hallmarking India’s name in the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games 2018, Manika Batra won gold medal with her stunning singles victories, molding an unthinkable 3-1 victory over four-time gold medallists Singapore in the final of the women’s team event. Not just that Shooter Jitu Rai won gold in men’s 10m air pistol event setting a new Commonwealth Games record while compatriot Om Mitharval won silver at the Belmont Shooting Centre on day five of the Gold Coast CWG. And whereas the weightlifting event is concerned, there is definetely no stopping, Punam Yadav confers Gold adding up to the number of medals.

World No. 58 Batra first scored the biggest of her career by humbling world number four and multiple Olympic medallist Feng Tianwei 3-2 before brushing aside 100th-ranked Yihan Zhou 3-0 to engineer a sensational win over the mighty Singapore side.

 

Manika, who was the recipient of the Times of India Sports Award (TOISA) for Table Tennis Player of the Year (People's Choice) in February, came out all guns blazing in her second match of the final as she outplayed Yihan Zhou in straight games 11-7, 11-4,11-7 to clinch the seventh gold for India. It took the country's total medal tally to 12 in the CWG.

 

While Batra was the architect of India’s historic win, the experienced pairing of Madhurika Patkar and Mouma Das played the supporting role to perfection by winning the crucial doubles tie 3-1 (11-7 11-6 8-11 11-7) against Zhou and Mengyu Yu for a 2-1 lead in the final.

Jitu Rai also grabbed Gold by swiftly winning the men's air pistol. Rai, a CWG gold medalist in 50m air pistol event four years ago in Glasgow, shot a total of 235.1 after qualifying for the final in the fifth position.

 

Mitharval, who qualified for the final equaling the CWG qualification record, shot a total of 214.3. Australia’s Kerry Bell won silver (233.5).

With these two medals, India’s tally goes up to 15 with the shooter delivering five medals. Weightlifters have accounted for nine medals.

Rai is a 2014 Asian Games gold medalist as well as two-time ISSF World Cup medalist. In 2014, at the age of 26, the Nepal-born Jitu competed in his first CWG and clinched gold on debut in the men’s 50m pistol event. He started by creating a CWG record in the qualification round of the 50m pistol event with 562 points and went on to win gold, scoring 194.1 points in the final, which was another record.

Punam Yadav, a bronze-medallist in the 63kg category at the 2014 Glasgow edition, lifted a personal best of 222kg (110kg+122kg) to claim the top spot ahead of England’s Sarah Davies, who finished with 217kg (95kg+122kg). Davies went for a 128kg lift in her final clean and jerk attempt in pursuit of gold but could not complete her attempt.

Yadav, a native of Uttar Pradesh, had claimed a silver at last year’s Commonwealth Championships, her first event after making the jump from 63kg to 69kg category. “I came to India camp in 2014 after taking up weightlifting on the insistence of my elder sister. She got me into it,” she said when asked about her initiation into the sport.

 

Viewing the enormous victories coming our way, we can’t stop boasting the talent India incorporates in terms of sports.