Millet surfaces with 14th gold

IMPHAL, FEB 23: Despite the 14-gold haul by swimming sensation Nisha Millet, Karnataka was relegated to the runners-up slot by the Kerala...

IMPHAL, FEB 23: Despite the 14-gold haul by swimming sensation Nisha Millet, Karnataka was relegated to the runners-up slot by the Kerala swimmers who emerged as the overall champions with 246 points at the end of the swimming events in the fifth National Games at the Khuman Lampak pool.

Led by the indomitable sensation Sebastain Xavier, who picked up seven gold and a silver, Kerala took the men’s team title, while Karnataka became the women’s team champions mainly due to Nisha’s efforts, who collected 14 gold and a silver.

In the individual categories, Nisha was declared the best women swimmer with 82 points while Sebastian Xavier bagged the honour in the men’s section gathering 43 points.

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The first final of the day – 200 M Individual medley – saw Nisha adding one more gold to her overnight tally of twelve. She timed 2:41:97 sec while her teammate Chitra K took the silver clocking 2:45:92 sec.

Nisha’s 14th and final gold came off the 100 metre freestyle which she won in 1:02:78 sec followed by sisterReshma who clocked 1:04:60 sec and Madhya Pradesh’s Shruti Jawhar whose timing was 1:06:50 sec.

Maharashtra settles for silver

Avenging their defeat at the last National Games, Kerala today beat Maharashtra 7-5 to take the gold of the waterpolo event in the fifth National Games.

Kerala was leading 4-2 after the first two quarter and then netted in three more in the next two quarters. Maharashtra also scored three but it was too late for them.

Maharashtra in volleyball final

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Holders Kerala will clash with favourites Maharashtra for the women’s volleyball title in the fifth National Games.

In the first semi-final today, Kerala beat Andhra Pradesh in straight sets 25-10, 25-14, 25-17 in 53 minutes, while Maharashtra overwhelmed Tamil Nadu 25-21, 15-25, 25-17, 25-15 in the second semi-final tie.

Kerala which topped the group ‘a’ with an all win record, proved too strong for Andhra as they won the first set with a ten points margin and followed it up in the next two sets in similarfashion.

UP gymnast dominate

The Uttar Pradesh men are dominating the gymnastics events, having picked up one gold, two silver and a bronze so far.

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In the women’s section Jaswant Kaur of Punjab shattered the domination of Bengal to pick up the gold, pushing Runa Das and Tumpa Debnath of West Bengal to second and third spot. In the men’s floor exercise, Vikas Pandey of Uttar Pradesh won gold with 8.625 points. Mohit Yadav, also from UP, got the silver with 8.225.

In the men’s pommel horse, Vishal Despande of Maharashtra sprang a surprise when he upstaged favourite Vikas Pandey of UP, who ended with silver with 8.325 points and Gaurav Shah of UP got the bronze with 8.275 points.Seeds sail smoothly All the top players, including top seed S Raman of Tamil Nadu and second seed Arup Basak of Bengal, moved into the quarter final of the men’s singles of the National Games table tennis championship at the D M College Indoor Stadium.

While top seed S Raman had a smooth sailing into the quarterfinalsover Ranbir Das of Bengal 21-13, 21-13, 21-8, the number two seed Arup Basak had a bumpy ride against Gujarat’s Jignesh Jaiswal whom he beat 21-17, 16-21, 23-25, 21-6, 21-8.

In women’s singles all the top seeds, including Poulomi Ghatak of Bengal, N R Indu of Tamil Nadu and Mouma das of Bengal, registered easy victories on their way to the last eight stage. Punjab houl nine gold Punjab won nine out of the 14 golds decided so far in wrestling .In the heavier categories in both the style Punjab was unstoppable.

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They also won five silvers ensuring that they remain in the medal tally of each of the 16 different weight categories.

Only in the lighter categories, Raj Kumar of Madhya Pradesh (58 kilogram), Ramesh Kumar of Delhi and Nishan also of Delhi (85 kilogram), could stop the Punjab juggernaut.

However, in the 97 kilogram category Ranbir Singh of services won gold in Greeco Roman style. Naresh Kumar of Punjab earned two silver. Except a lone gold by Kaka Pawar in the 54 kg Greeco Roman and anotherbronze by Gobind Pawar of Maharshtra all the other medals went in favour of the North Indian wrestlers who completely dominated the entire show.

Kerala swell tally

Kerala’s domination in the water sports is complete as they picked up four golds and silver from the 1000 metre rowing in the Lok Tak lake.

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Kerala got the golds in the coxed fours, coded pairs, double scull (women) single scull while the silver came men’s double scull and coxed four men.Shalini Varghese of Kerala picked up two golds to help her team not only winning the overall title of rowing but also Kerala to maintain the lead in the overall tally.