Commonwealth Games 2010 Day 5: India leads in race for 2nd spot

By Victor DSouza, Doha
Various sources
Bellevision Media Network

09 October 2010: In what turned out to be another big harvest for India on Friday culled an impressive tally of 14 medals, including six gold and a rare women’s athletics bronze in track events, to remain well on course in their aim to eventually finish second at the Commonwealth Games. The question, as rightly asked by our Philip Mudhartha, is whether India can keep the 2nd spot? Indians are better performers on their own soil, but England is breathing down the host nation’s neck with 19 gold under their belt. They have also won 37 silver and 20 bronze. Canada, with 14 gold, 5 silver and 20 bronze are in fourth spot. I would rather say, the race for finishing No. 2 in the Games has effectively become a three-horse race between India, England and Canada.

 

To add lustre to the gold, India has bagged five silver and three bronze medals too, leading them to an overall five-day medal heist of 20 gold, 16 silver and 12 bronze medals. Gold medals were won by shooters (3), woman wrestlers (2) and the women’s recurve archery team to help India end the day glued firmly in second place behind Australia whose haul read a seemingly unassailable 47-24-27. India were also just two behind their second-best tally of gold in the Games history, 22 four years ago at Melbourne and also ten short of equaling their best of 30 at Manchester in 2002.

 

 

 

 

Women wrestlers and archers excelled on Friday winning three golds between them as shooters continued to add to their kitty, taking India’s Commonwealth Games gold tally to 20 on the fifth day of competitions here. Anita won the gold in the freestyle 67kg category defeating Canadian M. Buydens 4-1 and Alka Tomar won in the 59kg event. She also defeated Canadian wrestler Tonya Verbeek 3-2. The women archers gave the country its maiden Commonwealth Games gold in the sport, which was re-included in the Games after 28 years. However the fancied men’s side disappointed getting only a bronze in recurve team event.

 

The shooters won three golds. With a silver each from shooting and women’s wrestling and a bronze from men’s archery. There was disappointment in tennis as top seed Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi crashed out of the men’s doubles event. However Somedev Devvarman and Sania Mirza entered the finals of the singles event. The first gold on Friday came from the women’s recurve team in archery. Dola Banerjee, Bombayala Devi and Deepika Kumari, beat England in the final at the Yamuna Sports Complex for the top honour, their first in the Commonwealth Games.

 

 

 

Later, India’s men archers won the bronze in the recurve team event. The team, comprising Jayanta Talukdar, Rahul Banerjee and Tarundeep Rai defeated England in the bronze play—off at the Yamuna Sports Complex. Continuing their blazing form, Indian shooters struck two more golds with Gagan Narang and Imran Hasan Khan winning the men’s 50-metre rifle three-position event and army man Vijay Kumar claiming top honours in the men’s 25-metre rapid fire pistol event. Omkar Singh won gold in 10m air pistol event.

 

Another army man, Gurpreet Singh, won the bronze in the 25-metre rapid fire pistol at the Karni Singh Shooting Range. Indian shooters, who set up Games records in both the events, have so far collected ten gold medals in the competition. Indian shooters Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Mansher Singh won the silver in the men’s trap pairs event. Wrestler Babita Kumari won the silver in the women’s freestyle 51kg category. She lost to Nigerian Ifeoma Christiana Nwoye 4-7.

 

The latest medals tally at the end of day 5:

 

Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
Australia	47	24	27	98
India	20	16	12	48
England	19	37	20	76
Canada	14	5	20	39
South Africa	7	5	6	18
Nigeria	5	5	8	18
Malaysia	5	5	6	16
Singapore	3	4	4	11
Kenya	3	2	1	6
Jamaica	2	1	0	3