India grab 10 medals to keep second position

India maintained their second spot behind front runners Australia, bagging 10 medals, including three gold, by holding their own in the shooting and archery ranges, as well as in the wrestling and weightlifting arenas at the Commonwealth Games today.

The golden streak struck over the past two days was kept going by pistol shooter Gurpreet Singh, who joined hands with Vijay Kumar and Omkar Singh, respectively, to snatch gold medals in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (Pairs) and 10m Air Pistol (Pairs). Haryana’s Geeta gave India their third gold of the day on the first day of women’s wrestling, that made its debut, by comprehensively winning the 55 kg freestyle event.

India scooped a bagful of three silver and four bronze medals to firmly remain in second spot behind leaders Australia, with a tally of 14-11-9. While the Kangaroos jumped further ahead of the rest with a haul of 29-16-14.

The shooting gold medals provided by the men’s pistol wielders took the country’s overall gold tally from the Dr Karni Singh range to six, showing how much the marksmen and women have contributed in keeping India’s flag flying high.

Grappler Geeta trounced her rival, Emily Bensted of Australia, in the 55 kg category final. She entered the gold medal round by defeating Lovina Odohi Edward of Nigeria, but her teammate — 63 kg grappler Suman Kundu — lost in the semi-finals.

Men’s double trap shooting ace Ronjon Sondhi got a silver medal, along with the men’s archery compound team and women’s 48 kg freestyle grappler, Nirmala Devi.The four bronze medals came in archery (women’s team compound event), woman grappler Suman Kundu (63 kg) 77 kg weightlifter Sudhir Kumar and Ashish Kumar, a surprise medallist in men’s gymnastics (floor exercise).

India struck gold early on the fourth day when marksmen Vijay Kumar and Gurpreet Singh clinched the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (pairs) event before the men’s and women’s archery teams added to the medal tally with a silver and a bronze.

Kumar and Gurpreet together fired 1,162 to bag the top prize in the pistol event, ahead of Malaysia’s Amir Hasan Hasli Izwan and Adzha Hafiz (1,142) and the A ustralian bronze medal winning duo of Bruce Quick and David Chapman (1,125). The Indian men’s compound team lost to England by two points (229-231) in the gold medal-deciding match, while the women defeated Malaysia by four points (223-219) in the corresponding event’s bronze play-off tie. These were the first two medals for the country from the archery range.