Commonwealth Games 2010 Day 2: India shoots to a golden start

By Victor D’Souza, Doha
Various media sources
Bellevision Media Network

06 October 2010: Indian shooters on Tuesday led the medal hunt at the Delhi Commonwealth Games winning two gold and two silver while wrestlers brought up the third, fourth and fifth gold’s on the second day of the Games here. With this effort, India stands second in the overall medals tally behind Australia. Also, Indian hockey team got off to a good start by beating Malaysia 3-2 and India blanked Barbados 5-0 in Badminton. On the international front, England opened their gold medal account with a couple of golds in the pool. Australia just about swept the cycling events.

 

Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang have given India its first Gold in the 19th edition of Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. The duo won Gold in the 10m Air Rifle Pairs event on Tuesday. They also set a new CWG record in the process, with a score of 119. The pair together scored 1193 to break their own record, which they had set four years ago in Melbourne, by notching up 1189. England`s James Huckle and Kenny Parr (1174) won the silver medal while Bangladesh`s Abdullah Hel Baki and Md. Asif Hussain Khan (1173) had to be content with bronze. Both teams, however, were far behind the Indian dup of Bindra and Gagan.

 

Shooters Rahi Sarnobat and Anisa Sayyed gave India its 2nd gold as they won in the 25m pistol pair event here on Tuesday. Onkar Singh and Deepak Sharma also won silver medal in 50m Air Pistol Pair event. The Indian medal spree continued on day 2 of the Commonwealth Games on Tuesday when shooters Tejaswini Sawant and Lajjakumari won a silver in the 50m rifle event. The duo added to the glorious day for Indian shooters that began with Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang.

 

Indian wrestlers produced a clinical display on the mat and made a clean sweep in the men’s Greco-Roman style with Ravinder Singh, Sanjay and Anil Kumar clinching gold in their respective categories at the Commonwealth Games. Young Ravinder started the gold rush for India, bagging the first yellow metal in wrestling in the 60kg category, beating England’s Christopher Terence Bosson 7-2 in front of the sparse but cheering crowd at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex.

 

Sanjay followed his compatriot’s footsteps and got the better of South Africa’s Brian Richard Addinall 2-0 in the 74kg category. And then Anil made it three out of three for host country when he defeated Hassene Fkiri of Australia 6-0 in the summit clash of the 96kg to round off an excellent day in office for Indian grapplers. But it all started with young Ravinder’s gold. He was a picture of concentration against his English opponent and inspite of finding himself in difficult situations twice in the bout, he stood firm and came out with flying colours.

 

 

 

In men’s hockey event, India aiming to break the medal drought in previous Games, began their bid with a 3-2 victory over Malaysia in their group-A lung-opener. India had to play out of their skin as they came back from a goal down to edge past a spirited Malaysia 3-2 in a Pool A match of the men’s hockey event at the Commonwealth Games here on Tuesday. Dhanjay Mahadik (27th minute) and Sandeep Singh (35) scored from two set pieces for India, while Bharat Chikkara (66) netted the winner just three minutes before the hooter. For Malaysia, Hanafi Hafifihafiz (15th) and Azlan Misron (34th) were the goal-getters.

 

Reigning silver medalists Pakistan began their Commonwealth Games campaign in style, outclassing a lowly Scotland 3-0 in a pool A match at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium in New Delhi on Tuesday. Eighth-ranked Pakistan proved too good for Scotland with strikes from Shakeel Abbasi (20th minute), Rehan Butt (25th) and Muhammad Imran (43rd).

 

England, the highest ranked team in the women’s hockey competition at the 19th Commonwealth Games, opened their campaign in pool B with a 4-1 win against arch-rivals Wales at the Major Dhyan Chand Stadium here on Tuesday. Playing the lead role in England victory was the experienced penalty corner specialist Crista Cullen who came up with three conversions (10th, 20th, 41st) while Charlotte Caddock (49th) added to the tally before Sarah Thomas pulled one back for Wales in the final minute. 

 

In tennis though, Somdev Devvarman survived a scare before Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi recorded a straight-set win as India continued its domination in the tennis event of the Commonwealth Games with an all-win day here on Tuesday. The top seeded and favorites Paes-Bhupathi sailed into the men’s doubles quarterfinals with a 6-3 6-3 win over Sri Lanka’s Thangarajah Dineshkanthan and Amresh Jayawickreme in the first round.

 

Somdev Devvarman, top seed in the men’s singles, began the day for the hosts on a winning note although his 6-4 6-2 win was not convincing. India’s women’s doubles pair of Nirupama Sanjeev and Poojashree also cruised to the quarterfinals with 6-0 6-1 demolition of Maldives’Aminath Irufa Mahir and Aminath Maleela Solih. With the Lee-Hesh victory, India have now won seven of the eight matches in two days of competition.

 

Badminton, IP Kashyap shone on debut while Saina Nehwal continued her rampaging run as India demolished a lowly Barbados 5-0 in the badminton mixed team event of the Commonwealth Games on Tuesday. After dumping Kenya 5-0 on Monday, it was time for Barbados to face the music when mixed doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and V Diju took the court to start the proceedings for India.

 

In swimming Veerdhawal Khade and Sandeep Sejwal qualified for the semi-finals of the 50-metre butterfly and 100-metre breast-stroke events. Khade clocked 24.72 seconds and came eighth among the 16 swimmers who qualified from the heats for the semi-finals. Sejwal clocked 1:02.72 seconds and stood ninth among the qualifiers. In para sport, the Indian trio of Kiran Tak, Anjani Patel and Vineeta Pathak finished seventh, eight and ninth respectively to enter the finals of the women’s para sport 50m freestyle. Kiran was the most impressive of the three as she clocked 38.79 seconds, followed by Anjani (47.64) and Vineeta (52.58).

 

At the end of Day 2, India stands at 5-4-2 just behind Australia’s, who is leading the tally with 9-9-5 while England were third with 2-6-4 followed by South Africa (2-2-1) and Malaysia (2-2-1) in that order. India will look to carry on the good work on Day 3 and add more gold’s to their tally in an attempt to inch closer to Australia who are currently the leaders of the pack.

 

About 250 km away from the Games venue, it was a completeley different scene as India’s Men in Blue battled to save their reputation as the No. 1 Test team. In the end VVS Laxman helped India achieve the miracle in Mohali as the team held on from an improbable situation to bring up a one-wicket win over the Australians. Yet again, Laxman’s bat had become the magic wand! While the Indian cricket team will carry on their battle with the Aussies in the second Test, they will hope that their countrymen do the same in the ongoing Commonwealth Games. 

 

The latest medals tally at the end of day 2:

 

Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
Australia	9	9	5	23
India	5	4	2	11
England	2	6	4	12
South Africa	2	2	1	5
Malaysia	2	2	1	5
Canada	2	0	5	7
Singapore	2	0	0	2
Nigeria	1	1	1	3
Scotland	1	0	2	3
Wales	0	1	1	2
New Zealand	0	1	1	2
Sri Lanka	0	0	1	1
Bangladesh	0	0	1	1
Trinidad and Tobago	0	0	1	1