Glasgow, Jul 29 (PTI): Murali Sreeshankar leapt 8.09m to bag his second successive Commonwealth Games long jump silver, while the irrepressible boxers assured 10 medals from the ring as the country enjoyed a bright outing here on Wednesday.
Sreeshankar, the first Indian to win back-to-back medals in long jump, had won a silver at the 2022 Games, and he did an encore with another stupendous effort.
Right after the Kerala man’s glory leap, India scripted history in para athletics, securing a historic one-two finish in the men’s 100m T47 — the sprint event for athletes with an upper-limb impairment.
Dilip Mahadu Gavit won the gold clocking 10.71 seconds to take the top spot, while Mohammed Basil produced 10.83 seconds to finish second.
The gold was India’s third at this CWG, following Mirabai Chanu’s victory in the women’s 48kg weightlifting and Sharmila Dhankar’s triumph in the women’s shot put F57 para athletics category.
With those three medals, India now have 15 medals in this Games — 3 gold, 9 silver and 3 bronze, and stand eighth on the table.
Sreeshankar double delight ================ Sreeshankar’s 8.03m initial jump placed him third behind Stephen McKenzie of Scotland and Tajay Gayle of Jamaica, with both of them finding identical distance of 8.08m.
The 27-year-old was briefly in gold medal position with 8.09m but Gayle went ahead of the field finding a distance of 8.15m and clinched the yellow metal.
McKenzie won the bronze 8.08, while the other Indian in the fray Lokesh Sathyanathan finished fifth with a best jump of 7.97m.
Boxers eclipse Birmingham haul =================== But before Sreeshankar’s silver and para athletes’ outstanding effort, boxers lorded the ring to enter semifinals of various weight categories, assuring 10 more medals from the arena.
Sakshi Chaudhary (51kg), Arundhati Choudhary (70kg), Sachin Siwach (60kg), Ankush Panghal (80kg), Narender Berwal (+90kg) and World champion Jaismine Lamboria (57kg) joined Lovlina Borgohain (75kg), Priya Ghanghas (60kg), Preeti Pawar (54kg) and Jadumani Singh (55kg) in the last four of their respective categories.
In the final bout of the day, Jaismine, the bronze medalist from Birmingham, defeated England’s Elise Glynn 4-1 in a closely contested women’s 57kg quarterfinal.
With the six wins on the day, the number of Indian boxers in the semifinals rose to 10 as the feat has already eclipsed India’s total boxing tally from the Birmingham 2022 — three gold, one silver and three bronze.
India are now assured of 10 bronze medals in the iteration of CWG.
Hurdlers in final ======== India gathered further joy from the track as Yashas Palaksha and Santhosh K Tamilarasan qualified for the men’s 400m hurdles final as the two fastest losers.
Santhosh finished third in Heat 2 with a time of 49.51 seconds, while Yashas also ended up at third in Heat 1, clocking 49.65 seconds.
It helped Santosh and Yashas to finish 7th and 8th overall respectively, earning the two tickets to the final outside the six automatic qualification spots.
Manpreet heartbreak ============= However, Manpreet Singh finished fourth in the women’s shot put final with a throw of 17.49m.
Earlier, Tajinderpal Singh Toor and Samardeep Singh Gill too kept themselves in the hunt for a medal moving into the shot put final.
National record holder Toor took two attempts to breach the automatic qualification mark of 20m in Group A.
His first effort measured 19.93m before coming up with 20.14m in his second throw.
In qualification round Group B, Gill’s best effort of the day was 19.95m which came in his opening attempt.
His second throw measured 19.75m and the third a foul. Gill finished fifth overall out of 15 who competed across the two groups.
Those who breached the 20m mark or the 12 best performers qualified for the finals to be held on Thursday.
India had one more silver-lining from the track as national record holder Animesh Kujur clocked his season best time to qualify for the 200m semifinals.
The 23-year-old Kujur ran 20.46 seconds to win Heat 4 in round one races and finish seventh overall.
The 16 fastest runners from across 10 heats advance to the semifinals to be held on Thursday.
Lifting no-show ========== However, there was no joy for India from the lifting arena as Sanjana bowed out of the women’s 77 kg category with a Do Not Finish (DNF).
A similar story was enacted in the pool as well after swimmers Sajan Prakash and Aneesh S Gowda failed to qualify for the men’s 200m freestyle final.
Prakash signed off a disappointing fifth in his heat and 20th overall with 1.51.99 seconds.
The 32-year-old finished behind debutant compatriot Aneesh, who too failed to move ahead by finishing 18th overall with a timing of 1:51.64 seconds. PTI APA UNG AM UNG TAP
(This story is published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. No editing has been done in the headline or the body by ABP Live.)
