THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, Feb 4 (PTI): The seasoned duo of Saurav Ghosal and Joshana Chinappa expectedly walked away with the individual gold medals in squash even as Haryana�s wrestlers demolished their rivals to sign off with a whopping 18 golds on the fourth day of competitions in the 35th National Games here today.
In fact, Haryana overtook two-time defending champions Services Sports Control Board (SSCB) at the top of the medals table riding on the gold rush triggered by their wrestlers, who ended their Games campaign with 18 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze medals, taking the state�s overall count to 33 (21 gold, 8 silver, 4 bronze).
The SSCB, aiming for a hat-trick of overall championship wins, were no pushovers either and have so far accumulated 21 gold, 5 silver and 9 bronze medals to total 35. Maharashtra took the third spot with 11 gold, 18 silver, 15 bronze medals for an overall total of 43.
If Haryana dominated wrestling, Services were going strong in shooting with London Olympics silver-medallist Vijay Kumar, after emerging on top in both the team and individual 25m centre fire pistol events yesterday, notching up a third gold today. Vijay combined with Gurpreet Singh and Omkar Singh to ensure a numero uno finish for SSCB in the 25m standard pistol men�s team competition.
However, the star shooter had to settle for a bronze in the individual event with a score of 565. The individual gold was clinched by his SSCB teammate Gurpreet Singh (572) with Madhya Pradesh�s Mahendra Singh (568) fetching the silver.
Services dominated the 10m rifle event as well with Chain Singh Manhas, who won the 50m rifle prone gold yesterday, added a second yellow metal to his kitty by finishing on top again today. Manhas scooped the gold by a whisker totalling 205.9 against Uttar Pradesh�s Akhil Sheoran, who shot a score of 205.8. Another Uttar Pradesh shooter � Sathyam Chauhan � was a distant third after scoring 183.5.
However, Haryana pipped them in the team competition with the trio of Sanjeev Rajput, Prasanth and Deepak Kumar clinching the gold ahead of Manhas, Ravi Kumar and Ashok Chavan. The bronze went to the Uttar Pradesh team of Akhil Sheron, Sathyan Chauhan and Rajendra Rai.
On the wrestling mat, Haryana�s dominant show continued and the state notched up five gold medals today. Rajendra Kumar claimed the men�s 59kg Greco-Roman gold after beating Delhi�s Ravinder. The bronze-medallists in this event were Maharashtra�s Vikram Krushant and Chhattisgarh�s Nitin.
Another gold for Haryana came from Amit Dhankar, who beat SSCB�s Arun to emerge champion in the men�s 70kg freestyle final. Yogesh (80kg Greco roman), Anita Sheoran (63kg freestyle) and Priyanka (53kg freestyle) added to the tally, helping the side to sign off.
The squash competition here saw complete domination by Tamil Nadu as all the finalists in both the men�s and women�s competition belonged to the state. First up was women�s singles in which the seasoned Joshana Chinappa did not have much trouble in sailing past Lakshya R 11-5, 11-8, 11-4 to grab the gold medal.
The bronze medals went to yesterday�s losing semifinalists � Urwashi Joshi of Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh�s Sachika Ingale.
In the men�s summit clash, Ghosal rallied to beat Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu after conceding the initial advantage. He won the match 4-11, 11-4, 11-8, 11-6 to expectedly walk away with the top honours, while the bronze-medallists were Delhi�s Gaurav Nadrajog and Tamil Nadu�s Ravi Dixit.
At the aquatics centre, it was another record-shattering day. Home state�s swimming sensation Sajan Prakash continued to create a splash by bagging a fourth gold medal in record time.
