Harpal Singh Bedi
Mizoram teenager Jeremy Lalrinnunga, smashed two Games records to help India and his weightlifting squad win their second gold as men hockey and women Cricket teams posted victories while world champion Nikhat Zareen commenced her boxing campaign with a dominating win at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games (CWG) on Sunday.
Jeremy lifted a total of 300kg in the Men’s 67kg category to be a full seven kilograms clear of Samoa’s Vaipava Loane, who won silver while Nigerian Edidiong Umoafia won bronze with a total lift of 290kgs.
All of India’s five medals so far ( two gold, two silver and one bronze medal )have come from Weightlifting with Olympic silver medallist Mirabai Chanu having opened gold account on Saturday, with a second consecutive CWG gold in the Women’s 49kg.
“I am very happy for all the love that I have received from back home,” said the teenager from Aizawl, Mizoram, who went through severe pain and even picked up a muscle injury in achieving the feat,
Late on Saturday night, Bindyarani Devi had given India a second silver after Sanket Sargar had done the same. Gururaja Poojary is India’s sole bronze medal winner thus far.
Elsewhere Women’s Cricket team beat Pakistan with a comfortable eight-wicket win. Star opening batter Smriti Mandhana scored unbeaten fluent 63 after bowlers Sneh Rana and Radha Yadav had taken two wickets apiece to skittle Pakistan out for 99 in 18 overs.
The Indian Men’s Hockey team also began their campaign on day three of competitions, notching up an ever more dominant and fluent 11-0 win over Ghana. They were ahead 3-0 after the first quarter itself and 5-0 after the first half. Harmanpreet Singh struck a hat-trick while Jugraj helped himself to a couple of goals. Abhishek opened the scoring for the Indians while Shamsher, Akashdeep, Lalit, Mandeep and Varun Kumar were the others who got on the board. Krishan Pathak also did his bit to have a clean sheet.
Men’s Table Tennis team chalked out comfortable victory over Bangladesh in the round of 16. They next play in the semi-finals tomorrow against Nigeria.
So was the in-form Srihari Natraj, through to the Men’s 50m backstroke semis in the pool, with a second-place finish in his Heat-6. His semi-final comes up later in the night.
In boxing World champion Nikhat Zareen got off to a flier in her Women’s 48-50kg (Light Flyweight) round of 16 bout against Mozambique’s Helena Ismail Bagao with the referee being forced to stop the contest in her favour.
However, Shiva Thapa in his 60-63.5kg (Light Welterweight) bout, went down 1-4 on points to Scotland’s Reese Lynch to end his campaign at the Games.
Other results
· In another Weightlifting class, the Women’s 59kg, Popy Hazarika could not make much headway finishing in seventh position with a total lift of 183kgs.
· In Gymnastics, Yogeshwar Singh finished 15th in the Men’s individual All-Round competition. In the corresponding Women’s event, Ruthuja Natraj also finished outside the medal positions.
· In Lawn Bowls, the Womens Four team consisting of Lovely Choubey,Pinki, Nayanmoni Saikia and Rupa Rani Tirkey beat Norfolk Island 17 – 9 to reach the Semi Finals that will be played tomorrow.
· In Squash, Joshana Chinappa reached the quarter finals by beating Kaitlyn Watts of New Zealand 3 – 0.