In what turned out to be another big harvest, India today 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.
To add lustre to the gold, the country 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 22 gold in the Games history, four years ago at Melbourne.
The haul is also 10 short of equalling their best of 30 at Manchester in 2002, when each class of weightlifting was awarded three gold medals, a practice that has been discontinued since then.
England were breathing down the host nation’s neck with 18 gold under their belt. They have also won 35 silver and 17 bronze. Canada, with 14 gold, 5 silver and 20 bronze, were in fourth spot.
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The race for finishing No. 2 in the Games has effectively become a three-horse race between India, England and Canada.
World rifle shooting champion Gagan Narang plucked his third gold medal at the Dr Karni Singh archery range by winning the 50m 3-position pairs event, while pistol experts Vijay Kumar and Omkar Singh became the champions in 25m rapid fire and 10m air pistol events, respectively.
Not to be outdone by the men, the country’s women competitors chipped in with their share of the yellow metal, with the recurve team of Dola Banerjee, Bombayala Devi and Deepika Kumari opened the gold medal account at the archery range.
Later, women grapplers Alka Tomar (59 kg freestyle) and Anita (67 kg freestyle) fought their way to gold medals in grand style and stole some of the limelight away from the all-conquering shooters.
Long distance runner Kavita Raut also made history by becoming the first athlete to bag a medal, bronze, in women’s track events in the Games history, when she finished third behind Kenya’s Grace Kwamboka Momanti and Doris Changeywo, clocking 33.05.28 in the 10,000m. It was also the country’s 10th medal in track and field events since 1958 when “Flying Sikh” Milkha Singh bagged India’s lone gold medal at the Cardiff Games.
The day began with shooting star Gagan Narang claiming his third gold medal, by winning the men’s 50m rifle 3-position pairs event with Imran Hasan Khan, and pistol shooter Vijay Kumar claimed the 25m rapid fire individual gold.