Tamil Nadu's VK Elakkiyadasan and SS Sneha of Karnataka were crowned the fastest male and female athletes of the 37th National Games after they clinched their respective 100m race gold medals in Panaji on Sunday. Elakkiyadasan finished with a timing of 10.36s ahead of Pranav Gurav of Maharashtra who clocked 10.41s. Services' Saurabh Rajesh won the bronze with a timing of 10.45s. (Full coverage | Sports News)
Sneha crossed the finish line with a timing of 11.45s ahead of the experienced Srabani Nanda of Odisha. R Giridharani of Tamil Nadu won the bronze with a timing of 11.58 sec. Maharashtra became the first contingent to cross the 100-medal mark.
Five Games records were broken on the opening day of swimming competition with Karnataka's Srihari Natraj winning two gold medals. Olympian Srihari was the first to lower the Games mark on Sunday with a timing of 1:49.09s in 200m freestyle, pushing Kerala's Sajan Prakash (1:51.10) to second spot while Aneesh Gowda of Karnataka finished third with a time of 1:52.18s.
Srihari then bagged his second gold in the 4x100 relay with the Karnataka team, also comprising Gowda, Sambhavv R and Prithvi M, clocking a time of 3:26.88s. Tamil Nadu (3:28.46) and Maharashtra (3:28.72) won the silver and bronze respectively.
Prakash was the only one to stop the Karnataka juggernaut winning the men’s 100m butterfly with a new National Games mark.
Prakash, who had won five gold, two silver and a bronze in the last National Games in Gujarat, clocked 53.79s to finish ahead of Maharashtra’s Mihir Ambre (54.32s) and B Benedicton Rohit (55.00) of Tamil Nadu.
In the women's section, Karnataka’s Nina Venkatesh also bettered the Games mark, clocking 1:02.22 sec in the 100m butterfly.
Astha Choudhary of Assam clinched the silver medal with a time of 1:04.21 and Shristy Upadhaya (1:04.24s) of Odisha took home the bronze.
Goa Betters Its Best-ever Performance
The inclusion of pencak silat in the National Games has helped Goa showcase their best-ever performance in the multi-sport event. Goa secured a gold and eight bronze medals on the final day of pencak silat competitions.
Goa won a total of one gold, one silver and 14 bronze medals from pancak silat, taking their total tally of medals to 26, which is 17 more than what the state managed to secure in the previous edition.
Maharashtra topped the standings in pencak silat with seven gold, five silver and five bronze to bolster their medals tally. They have also won 12 gold in gymnastics, 10 in modern pentathlon, nine in mallakhamb and three in weightlifting.
In the final categories of weightlifting, Uttar Pradesh's Purnima Pandey of Uttar Pradesh clinched the gold medal in the women's 87-plus category, lifting a total weight of 222kg.
Kerala's Ann Mariya MT secured the silver with a total lift of 206kg and Yogita Khedkar of Maharashtra took the bronze, lifting 198kg.
In the final event of the weightlifting competition, Vipan Kumar of Services won the gold, lifting an aggregate weight of 348kg in the men's 109-plus category.
Tamil Nadu's S Rudramayan won the silver medal with a total lift of 343kg and bronze medal was secured by Gagandeep Gill of Punjab who lifted a total of 339kg.
Table tennis also got underway with the team events. In men's category, West Bengal beat Haryana 3-0 in Group A, while Maharashtra beat hosts Goa 3-0 in the same group.
In Group B, Delhi edged out Telangana 3-2 while Uttar Pradesh also beat Assam in the same score line.
In the women’s category, West Bengal beat Tamil Nadu 3-0 with Indian international Mouma Das winning her match against Selena Selvakumar in Group B while Madhya Pradesh defeated Goa 3-0.
Maharashtra beat Haryana 3-1 with Diya Chitale winning her rubber against fellow international Suhana Saini in Group A even as Delhi beat Karnataka 3-2.
In the second round of Group B, West Bengal beat Madhya Pradesh 3-2 for their second win.
