India begin golden run at SAG, on top in medals tally

It was gold rush for India on the opening day of the South Asian Games with the country's wrestlers, swimmers and weightlifters showing their regional dominance by
making a near clean sweep of top honours here today.
India clinched 14 gold, and five silver medals on a highly productive day
to top the medals tally with an overall count of 19. Sri Lanka, despite having a higher overall medal count of 21, occupied the second spot in the table owing to a lesser tally of gold medals (4).
Wrestlers were the stars for India, grabbing as many as five gold medals followed by the swimmers who clinched four gold and three silver medals

.

The weightlifters added three gold medals to the tally after the cyclists had opened India's account with two gold and an equal number of silver medals in the morning.
Three women and two male grapplers finished on top of the podium as the proceedings went on expected lines on the opening day of the competitions.
Rajneesh and Ravinder bagged the gold in Men's 65kg and 57kg divisions respectively.
In women's wrestling,
Priyanka Singh claimed the top position in 48kg, while Manisha won the gold in 60kg and Archana Tomar clinched the yellow metal in 55kg categories.
The Indians created quite a splash in the pool as well picking up three of their four gold medals by clocking record times.

Asian Games bronze-medallist Sandeep Sejwal (men's 200m breaststroke), Shivani Kataria (women's 200m freestyle) and the women's 100m freestyle relay team set new Games record timings on their way to gold while Damini Gowda added another yellow metal in women's 100m butterfly.
Sejwal won his pet event in 2:20.66sec to better his own record of 2:21.03 which he had set in the last edition in Dhaka in 2010 and defended his title. Kiran Jasinghe of Sri Lanka and Mohd Shariful Islam came second and third in 2:26.17 and 2:26.99 respectively.
Damini Gowda then brought home the third gold for India
in women's 100m butterfly as she clocked one minute and 4.92 seconds to finish much ahead of two Sri Lankans K A Hiruni Perera (1:06.89) and Machiko Raheem ( 1:07.24).

The Indian women's 4x100m freestyle quartet completed the home side's dominance by winning the relay event, the last of the day, to the big cheer from the crowd. They clocked 4:01.95 to better India's own record of 4:08.72 set in the 2006 edition in Colombo. The Sri Lankan ( 4:05.07) and Pakistan (4:22.38) teams were second and third respectively.
As many as six Games records were set out of the eight competed today and expectedly Sri Lanka ran neck and neck with India by grabbing 3 gold, 5 silver and 3 bronze. Pakistan won a silver while Bangladesh could win four bronze medals at the Dr Zakir Hussain Aquatic Complex here.

In men's 200m freestyle, India's Saurabh Sangvekar won the silver in 1:53.03. The second silver came in men's 100m butterfly through Supriyo Mondal in 55.86 seconds.
India established early dominance
In the weightlifting
competition as well by notching up three gold medals on the first day of competitions.
Saikhom Mirabai Chanu, Harshdeep Kaur and Gururaja bagged the yellow metal for India.
Chanu, silver medallist at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, opened the medal account for India in weightlifting in women's 48kg weight category.
She lifted a total of 169kg (79kg in snatch + 90kg in clean and jerk). All her efforts in snatch, clean and jerk and total are South Asian Games records as women's weightlifting has been included for the first time in the SAG.

(REOPENS DEL 41)
India ruled the the roost on the wrestling mat as they ran away with all the five gold medals on offer on the opening day of competitions here.
Priyanka Singh (women's 48kg freestyle), Archana Tomar (women's 55kg freestyle), Manisha (women's 60kg freestyle), Ravindra (men's 57kg freestyle) and Rajneesh (men's 65kg freestyle) won gold with ease in a show of complete dominance at the DTRP Indoor Stadium.
Priyanka opened the gold medal account for India by defeating Sumitra of Nepal 4-0, while Niroshan of Sri Lanka won the bronze.
Tomar bagged the second gold for India as she toyed with her opponent S Chaowdhary of Bangladesh in a 4-0 result. X P Kumari of Sri Lanka was third as she beat Sarmila Rai of Nepal in the bronze medal bout.

Manisha ensured India's clean sweep in the women's section as she got a 4-0 verdict against X Kabita of Nepal in the final bout. Rina Akhtar of Bangladesh won the bronze in that category.
Ravinder then gave India the gold in the men's 57kg freestyle with a 3-0 win over Mohammad Bilal of Pakistan before Rajneesh completed the memorable day for India with a 4-0 win over Pakistan's Nadar in the men's 65kg.
In men's football, India made a disappointing start to their campaign as they suffered a solitary goal loss to Sri Lanka. They will now have to beat Maldives in their group match on February 10 if they want to finish among top two and qualify for the semifinals.

India enjoyed the lion's share of possession at the SAI Center ground and dominated most of the proceedings but failed to convert the chances that came their way. Sri Lanka's all-important goal was scored in the 14th minute by captain MCM Rinas from a free-kick from around 30 yards.
In squash, top Indian players Sourav Ghosal, Harinderpal Singh and Joshana Chinappa easily made it to the semifinals while Sunayna Kuruvilla bowed out of the competition in the individual events.
Ghosal hardly broke a sweat as he beat Mohd Shumon of Bangladesh 11-5 11-1 11-3 in the quarterfinals while Harinderpal also sent packing Mohd. Shamil Wakeel of Sri Lanka 11-3 11-8 11-3 to enter the semifinals.

In women's individual event, Joshana toyed with Krishna Thapa of Nepal 11-6 11-4 11-4 to storm into the semifinals.
However, Sunayna Kuruvilla failed to make it to the semifianls after losing to Mihilya Methsarani of Sri Lanka 11-6 9-11 11-4 5-11 10-12.
In Volleyball, Indian men's team spanked Nepal 3-0 (25-15 25-16 25-16), while in Kho Kho, Indian men's team beat Nepal 23-21 and the women's side defeated Sri Lanka 16-14.