India enter hockey final
India turned in their best-ever performance at the Commonwealth Games, finishing the penultimate day of the athletics competition with one gold medal and as many as four bronzes at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here on Tuesday.
India have mined metal this time, with 12 medals in all from track and field, the women’s 4x400 metres relay team of Manjeet Kaur, Sini Jose, A.C. Ashwini and Mandeep Kaur adding to discus thrower Krishna Poonia’s gold on Monday with one of their own. The foursome ran a storming race, Mandeep leading all the way in the final leg to the finish in 3 minutes, 27.77 seconds.
Adding to India’s joy was their maiden entry to the final of the men’s hockey event. On Tuesday they outplayed England by a 5-4 margin on penalties after trailing 1-3 till the 45th minute before tying the match and taking the issue into extra time and thereafter the shootout. India now face Australia in Thursday’s final.
The hosts hit the bullseye once again at the Karni Singh shooting ranges when Heena Sidhu and Annu Raj Singh topped the 10m air pistol event. Defending champion Samaresh Jung and rifle shooter Tejaswini Sawant settled for a silver each in their respective events at the Karni Singh range.
While Jung combined with Chandrasekhar Chowdhury for his medal in the men’s 25m standard pistol pairs, Tejaswini shot 594 points to take second place in the 50m rifle prone event.
The spectre of dope made its presence felt with women’s 100m champion Osayemi Oludamola of Nigeria testing positive for the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine (MHA) on Monday. On Tuesday, the Commonwealth Games Federation had stripped her of the gold after her “B” sample also emerged positive.
Top spot on the podium will now go to Natasha Mayers of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the silver to Katherine Endacott of England and the bronze to Cameroon’s Bertille Delphine Atangana.
In table tennis, defending champion Achanta Sharath Kamal and Soumyadeep Roy advanced to the semi-finals of the men’s singles and later into the doubles semis as well.
On the badminton court, India entered two finals, Saina Nehwal contesting the singles final and Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa going for gold in the doubles.
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