Hosts Madhya Pradesh (MP) on Thursday extended their gold run at the Khelo India Youth Games (KIYG) 2022 with four more golds on day four to add to the four they won on day three and remain in the top two. medal ranking
The story of the day, however, was the rise of national sports superpowers Maharashtra, two-time winners of the KIYG, as they bagged a total of seven gold, five silver and six bronze medals on Day 4 to climb to the top of the medal tally. He has won eight gold, six silver and seven bronze medals. This pipped the hosts who had the same amount of gold but only three silver.
The hosts continue to do well
Jabalpur girl Gautami Bhanot, 16, who won silver and bronze for India at the Asian Airgun Championship in Korea last year and also did well in the national selection trials recently, was among MP’s four gold medallists, winning the Girls’ 10m air event. Rifle competition at Bhopal’s MP Shooting Academy precinct, Maharashtra’s Isha beat Anil Taksale 16-14 in the gold medal clash.
Other gold medalists for MP included Satyarth Patel who won the Boys’ 10m Air Rifle event and in Kayaking & Canoeing, Oinam Binita Chanu shared two golds, winning the Girls’ K-1 500m event by herself and partnering Astha Dangi earlier. To win Girls’ K-2. 500 meters race.
In fact, there was a rare dead-heat in the Girls’ K-1 race and one gold medal was awarded to Oinam and Odisha’s Pukhrambam Roji Devi respectively. Thanks to their efforts, MP now leads the water sports charts with six gold and three silver medals.
Maharashtra nose ahead with seven golden days
Maharashtra’s golds came in Cycling and Yogasana, where they literally swept the competition. They won a total of 12 medals in Yogasana, four of each color, including three golds at the Delhi Cycling Velodrome.
The other two, a silver and a bronze came in the shot put, where the hosts, through Satyarth Patel and Gautami Bhanot, won two of the three golds on offer. Haryana’s Sameer, India’s junior silver medalist at the world championships, made it 1-2 for Haryana in the Boys 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Olympic event.
The other story of the day came from the Upper Lake area of Bhopal, with Odisha leading the hosts, bagging three of the five golds on offer and a total of five medals in kayaking and canoeing to climb to third place in the event. Sports powerhouse Haryana, who so far stand fourth with two golds, three silvers and a bronze in their kitty.
READ ALSO| ISL 2022-23: Odisha FC hold Chennaiyin FC to 2-2 draw at Marina Arena
Top performances
Apart from double gold medalist Oinam Chanu, the best players of the day included Haryana’s talented Devika Sihag in Girls badminton, who made it to both finals. At the MP Badminton Academy in Gwalior, she defeated Kerala’s Pavithra Naveen 21-5, 21-9 to advance to the singles final and also made the Girls’ doubles final with Ridhi Kaur Toor.
In the singles, she teamed up with 14-year-old youngest badminton athlete at the Games, Naishaa Kaur Bhatoye, to beat shuttler Gargi of Andhra 21-11, 21-12. Punjab’s Abhinav Thakur, who surprised senior team Bharat Raghav of Haryana, and Telengana’s K. Lokesh Reddy will battle it out in the Boys’ final.
The final lineup drawn for many sports
The fourth day also saw the final lineups drawn for many sports including volleyball, table tennis, archery and Kho Kho.
At the SAI Indoor Hall in Bhopal, Haryana and Gujarat and Tamil Nadu (TN) and West Bengal (WB) will compete in the boys’ and girls’ finals. The Haryana boys played out of their skins to thrash Tamil Nadu 3-0 (25-15, 28-26, 25-14) in straight games. In fact, they scored 3-0 in the three halves as Gujarat defeated Uttar Pradesh (UP) in the other boys’ halves and TN and WB overcame the challenge of Kerala and Haryana in the Girls’ halves.
In the table tennis match against Indore’s Abhay Prashal, Delhi’s Lakshita Narang caused the downfall of Karnataka’s Yashaswini Ghorpade, resulting in a 4-0 (11-7, 11-9, 11-6, 11-7) defeat. storm into the girls’ final. He will meet Maharashtra’s Taneesha Kotecha, who defeated Haryana’s Prithoka Chakraborty in the first semis 4-3 in a tighter contest. In the boys’ final, UP’s Divyansh Srivastava will face WB’s Ankur Bhattacharjee.
In archery, played at the Ranital Gymnasium in Jabalpur, there was more good news for the hosts as they made the final of the Mixed Archery competition. The MP team will also fight for bronze in the Compound Mix Team competition on Friday against Delhi.
In the rest of the competitions, Rajasthan’s Rampal Choudhary and West Bengal’s Juyel Sarkar will battle it out for gold in Recurve Boys, while the Recurve Girls final will be an all-Haryana affair between Ridhi and Bhajan Kaur. In the Compound Girls and Mixed Team events, Maharashtra and Rajasthan will battle it out for the gold, in the Compound Boys event Thirumuru Ganesh Mani Ratnam of Andhra Pradesh and Kushal Dalal of Haryana qualified for the gold medal match.
As Kho Kho is also played at the Ranital Sports complex, Delhi and Maharashtra made it to the finals in the Boys’ category, the latter of which reached the Girls’ finals as well and will face Odisha in the same clash.
Group Matches
In basketball, the team games continued in Indor and Gatka, the Soti competitions started at the District Sports Center in Mandla. There were also football team matches in Indore and Balaghat. Also, there were a total of 60 boxing sessions, 30 for boys and girls, at the TT Nagar Stadium in Bhopal and the line-up for the semi-finals has been finalized.
Read all the latest sports news here
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)