Khelo India: Maharashtra climb to top of medals tally (Roundup)

Buoyed by four gold medals from swimming, besides two more from athletics and one from wrestling, Maharashtra moved to the top of the medals tally after the fourth day of the Khelo India School Games here on Saturday.

Apart from seven gold, Maharashtra also have 11 silver and 12 bronze for a total of 39 medals.

The next three states all have 12 gold each, but Delhi edged ahead of Haryana and Kerala on the basis of better hauls in silver and bronze medals.

Hosts Delhi, who won five gold medals on Saturday, had the most medals at 44 with 12 gold, 13 silver and 19 bronze.

In the third spot was Haryana with 12 gold, 10 silver and 11 bronze for a total of 33 medals while Karnataka had 12 gold, nine silver and eight bronze for an overall tally of 29.

Maharashtra dominated the swimming events as Kenisha Gupta and Neel Roy won two gold each in the boys' and girls' sections respectively.

Kenisha won two gold in girls' 50 metre freestyle and 200m individual medley, while her teammate Neel won the boys' 50m freestyle and 200m medley.

Srihari Nataraj of Karnataka, who has been among the stars of these Games, won the boys' 200m backstroke to complete a double. He had won the boys' 100m backstroke earlier in the week.

However, he was relegated to the second place in boys' 50m freestyle by Neel. But Nataraj did pick up a gold in the boys' 4x100m medley relay.

On Saturday, the concluding day of athletics, the big star was the shy Tamil Nadu quarter miler Sumathira Balakrishnan, who won the girls' 400m and then anchored her team to a fine win in the relay.

Shot putter Abhishek Singh of Uttar Pradesh, who won the first gold medal of these games with a throw of 18.73 metres, was declared the best male athlete, while Kerala's Aparna Roy, who won the 100m hurdles event in 14.02 seconds, was adjudged the best female athlete.

The athletics events came to end with three states, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra accounting for five gold medals each from a total of 36 that were contested over the last four days.

Tamil Nadu, however, had the most medals overall in athletics with eight silver and six bronze for a total of 19.

Kerala had a total of 17 medals that included five gold, seven silver and five bronze medals. Maharashtra also had five gold besides four silver and two bronze for a total of 11 medals.

Tamil Nadu (six gold), Uttar Pradesh and Kerala with five gold each followed the top four states.

--IANS

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