In brief — Punjab in handball finals

Punjab handballers lined themselves up for a grand double, winning their semi-final matches in contrasting styles at Mysore's Chamundi Viha...

Punjab handballers lined themselves up for a grand double, winning their semi-final matches in contrasting styles at Mysore’s Chamundi Vihar Stadium today. Punjab men shrugged off a late surge by Bihar to scrape through 34-31, after leading 17-12 at the breather. Raja Rao did the chunk of scoring for Punjab with 14 goals with S.P. Singh chipping in with seven.

Inderjeet Singh with eight and Ranjeeth Singh with seven fought the `losing battle’ for Bihar. Punjab will now take on Services, who defeated J-K 25-22. For Services, Arunachalam with eight and Raja Reddy with six were the leading scorers. Unlike their male counterparts, Punjab eves had an easy outing against MP, winning 31-18. Gurpreet Purewal stood tall in the match, finding the net 16 times. Punjab will face arch-rivals Kerala, who had a comfortable 30-25 win over Manipur.Gold for Services pairServices men and Karnataka women began the domination in rowing, bagging gold medals in coxless pairs and double sculls races today.

Reigning National champions Kasam Khan and Kinu Kurien fetched the first gold for Services at Ulsoor Lake, trouncing the Maharashtra pair of Birbal Singh and Gopinath Dhire in the coxless pairs. Haryana duo Sukhbir Singh and Prem Chand won the bronze. Former National champion S. Sabeena and international Malini Borai earned the first gold for Karnataka, winning another easy race in the double sculls. They defeated Kerala’s V.O. Sunandha and Jolly Joseph. The doubles scull race for women was held in the Games for the first time.

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Maharashtra win goldMaharashtra women, with an all-win record in the five team round-robin league in the water polo event, clinched the gold at the Jayanagar pool today. In their last match, Maharashtra put paid to the aspirations of defending champions West Bengal by edging them 2-1. Bengal, in their last league match tomorrow would take on Kerala, which would decide the silver and bronze winners. Both Kerala and Bengal have played three matches (2 wins, one loss) respectively. In the men’s three-team super-league, reigning champions Maharashtra notched up a 9-2 win over Delhi in their opening encounter. Delhi suffered their second consecutive defeat

Golden double for hostsKarnataka completed a golden double in the cycling road races events when its cyclist S.H. Gali won the men’s 120 km while the women’s gold in the 50 km was bagged by Bemcha Devi of Manipur today. Gali won the event in three hours, 25 minutes, 3.38 secs with Manjit Singh of Delhi finishing second and L.B. Mali of Karnataka finishing third. It was a double for Gali, who was part of the State team that won the 70 km team trials held at the Nelamangala-Hassan National Highway on June 7.

In the women’s road race, Bemcha Devi timed one hour, 43 minutes, 20.33 secs for her golden effort. Anitha Andrews of Kerala and Gangu Biradar of Karnataka finished second and third respectively.