Commonwealth Games: India win historic gold in lawn bowls; clinch medals in TT, badminton and weightlifting-Sports News , Firstpost

Indian women’s fours lawn bowls team celebrate with historic gold medal at 2022 Commonwealth Games. AP

India clinched four medals on the fifth day of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham to take their tally to 13. The women’s fours lawn bowls and men’s table tennis teams clinched gold medals. Weightlifter Vikas Thakur and the mixed team badminton won silver.

Here’s a complete wrap of the India action from Day 5

Lawn bowls fairy tale

Lovely Choubey, Pinki Singh, Nayanmoni Saikia and Rupa Rani Tirkey struck gold, India’s fourth of the Games, in the women’s fours lawn bowls competition beating South Africa 17-10 in the gold medal match. It was not only the first-ever gold, but also the first ever medal for India in the sport.

The Indian quartet did not have it easy, however, seeing their 8-2 lead disappear in a jiffy with the South Africans making a brilliant comeback to edge ahead 8-10 after the completion of 10 ends.

With five more ends remaining, India staged a golden comeback of their own and pulled-off a nine-point streak without reply to create history.

Explained: What is lawn bows?

Fifth gold!

In the men’s team event in table tennis, India were up against Singapore in the final. First to go where Sathiyan Gnanasekaran and Harmeet Desai against Yong Quek and Yew Pang in the men’s doubles rubber where the Indian pair strangled the Singaporeans 13-11, 11-7,11-5, before Zhe Yu Chew drew parity with a hard-fought win against veteran Sharath Kamal 11-7, 12-14, 11-3 and 11-9.

Sathiyan put India back in the lead with a similar four-game 12-10, 7-11, 11-7, 11-4 victory over Yew in the second singles. Harmeet Desai then finished it with a clinical 11-8, 11-5, 11-6 demolition of Zhe for India to successfully defend their crown in style.

Weightlifting again!

With seven medals including three gold under their belt, India’s weightlifters are raising hopes every time they step out to the field of play and today it was Vikas Thakur in the men’s 96kg category who won silver, with a total lift of 346kg.

He lifted a best of 155kg in snatch and 191 in clean and jerk to finish well behind Samoan heavyweight Don Opeloge who smashed the Games record with a massive 381kg lift.

Earlier, Punam Yadav in the women’s 76kg however registered a no-lift in the clean and jerk and did not make the board as a result. Ushan Bannur finished sixth on the tally in the women’s 87kg weightlifting event

CWG 2022: India Day 6 complete schedule, time in IST

Badminton silver

India took home silver in the badminton mixed team event after losing 3-1 to Malaysia in the final. Aaron Chia and Soh Woo Yik defeated Satwik Sairaj and Chirag Shetty 21-18, 21-15 in the opening doubles tie, but PV Sindhu pulled back things with a 22-20, 21-17 win over Jin Wei Goh.

This was followed by Kidambi Srikanth’s singles match where he lost to Ng Tze Yong 19-21, 21-6, 16-21. Malaysia completed the win with Tinnah Muralitharan and Koong Le Pearly Tan beating Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand 21-18, 21-17.

Commonwealth Games: India schedule, Results, Medals tally

Athletics

After the marathons were run on day two, day five saw track and field events begin at the Alexander Stadium in right earnest.

India tasted immediate success with Murali Sreeshankar being the best men’s long jumper of the day with a best leap of 8.05m. Teammate Muhammed Anees Yahiya also qualified with a 7.68m jump to make it two Indians in the men’s long jump final.

Manpreet Kaur also qualified in the women’s shot put with a throw of 16.78m finishing fourth in her qualifying group.

There was disappointment for Dutee Chand in the women’s 100m heat though as she ran 11.55 secs to finish fourth and bow out of contention.

In the women’s discus throw final, the 39-year-old Seema Punia finished fifth with a best attempt of 55.92m. Navjeet Kaur Dhillon, 2018 bronze medallist, finished 8th with a best effort of 53.51m.

First loss for women’s hockey team

The Indian women’s hockey squad suffered their first defeat of the campaign going down to hosts England 1-3 in their third group game. They had scripted two victories over Ghana and Wales before this.

Hannah Martin, Tess Howard and Giselle Ansley scored for the home side as Vandana Katariya pulled one back for India in the fourth quarter of the game.

Other results

In Swimming, Srihari Nataraj qualified as the first reserve in the men’s 200m backstroke, finishing his heat in third place with a timing of 2.00.84mins. Advait Page and Kushagra Rawat also qualified from their respective men’s 1500m freestyle heats with the former clocking 15.39.25 mins in his heat and the latter 15.47.77 mins, as both registered identical fourth place finishes.

In squash, Sunayna Kuruvila registered a fluent win in the first women’s singles plate semi-final. Sunayna steamrolled Pakistan’s Faiza Zafar 11-2, 11-4, 11-5.

However, Saurav Ghosal went out in the men’s singles semis against former world number one and current British Open champion Paul Coll of New Zealand who won 11-9, 11-4, 11-1, in straight games.

Indian boxer Rohit Tokas (67kg) advanced to the quarter-finals in the men’s welterweight category after securing a 5-0 win over Alfred Kotey of Ghana.

Click here for our complete coverage of the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

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