Ankita Raina leads Gujarat to Tennis Gold
Services Sports Promotion Board (SSCB) rowers secured six gold medals to help the defending champions to pull away from Haryana in the race for the second place in the medal tally in the 37th National Games on Wednesday.
Services now has bagged a total of 46 medals including 26 golds. Maharashtra led the table with a total of 130 medals including 54 golds with Haryana in third place with 20 gold.
In the Rowing competition being held at the Chapora River, 12 finals were held on Wednesday. Apart from SSCB who swept all golds in the men’s category, Madhya Pradesh won three gold medals in the women’s category, while Kerala won two and Haryana won the other gold.
In the men’s quadruple sculls event, Asian Games bronze medal winning team of Satnam Singh, Parminder Singh, Jakar Singh, Sukhmeet Singh of SSCB won gold. Another Asian Games bronze medal winning pair of Babulal Yadav and Lekh Ram won gold for SSCB in the Men’s Pair event. Olympians Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh of SSCB won gold in the Men’s Lightweight Double Scull Pair event.
At the Fatorda Multipurpose Stadium, India’s number one ranked women’s tennis player Ankita Raina guided Gujarat to gold in the team event. In a match of heavyweights, Ankita beat Asian Games mixed doubles gold medallist Rutuja Bhosale of Maharashtra 6-4, 6-4 to seal the gold medal for the state. Vaidehee Chaudhari had earlier beaten Vaishnavi Adkar to give Gujarat the lead in the match.
In the athletics events held late on Tuesday night due to rain delay, Asian Games Silver medallist Ancy Sojan edged out her state mate Nayana James to win the women’s Long Jump gold medal.
Ancy jumped 6.53 m in her fifth attempt and Nayana only managed to leap to a distance of 6.52 in her final attempt. Moumita Mondal of West Bengal secured bronze with a best jump of 6.41.
In the men’s pole vault, 18-year-old Dev Meena of Madhya Pradesh jumped 5.16 m to win the gold and also secure a place in the U 20 Athletics World Championships to be held next year. Kuldeep Kumar of Uttar Pradesh won silver while Anas Babu E.B of Services won bronze.
