Monday’s silver lining was followed by a golden sunrise on Tuesday as India roared into second place on the Common-wealth Games medals tally with a rich haul of five gold medals on the day — three coming from as many wrestling finals and two from the shooting range.
Ravinder Singh triggered the gold rush on the mat when he outpointed England’s Terence Bosson in the 60 kg Greco-Roman final. Sanjay (74 kg) followed up with a comprehensive win over Richard Adinall of South Africa and the burly Anil Kumar rounded off a happy evening for the hosts, beating Australia’s Hassene Fkiri in an ill-tempered 96 kg final.
Keeping home fans smiling were the men’s hockey team, who delivered a come-from-behind 3-2 win thanks to a last-gasp Bharat Chettri goal over Malaysia in a late match at the Major Dhyanchand Stadium to get their Games campaign off to a bright start.
At the Karni Singh ranges, hot favourites Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang shot gold in the 10m air rifle pairs event with a score of 1193 before Rahi Sarnobat and Anisa Sayyed followed it up with victory in the women’s 25m air pistol event.
The hosts also picked up two silver medals — making it four in all from the 12 medals on offer on the day. In the men’s 50m air pistol pairs, Omkar Singh and Deepak Sharma shot 1087 to take second place and in the 50m rifle three position, Tejaswini Sawant and Lajja Kumari failed to match pre-Games expectations and had to settle for silver.
Narang shot a brilliant sequence of 99, 100, 100, 99, 100, 100 to total 598, while Beijing Olympic gold medallist Bindra tallied 100, 98 ,99, 100, 99, 99 for a total of 595.
On the tennis court, Somdev Devvarman had to fight in initially before overcoming Devin Mullings of the Bahamas 6-4, 6-2 at the RK Khanna Stadium in the morning session. In the women’s doubles, Nirupama Sanjeev and Poojashree Venkatesh beat Aminath Maleeha Solih and Amintah Irufa Mahir of the Maldives 6-0, 6-1 in just 42 minutes.
The evening session saw Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathy move up in the men’s doubles beating Sri Lanka’s Thangarajah Dineshkanthan and Amresh Jayawickreme 6-3, 6-3 in 68 minutes.
At the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, Indian boxers Amandeep Singh (49 kg) and Manoj Kumar (64 kg) scored easy wins before a sellout crowd to enter the pre-quarterfinals.
On the badminton court, P. Kashyap and Saina Nehwal took India closer to a team medal with good wins in a 5-nil demolition of Barbados. Jwala Gutta and V. Diju beat Jonathan Thorpe and Shari Watson in an 11-minute mixed doubles encounter, Kashyap then routed Reifer Nicholas Colin 21-14, 21-6 in 17 minutes and Saina packed off Ayanna Eastmond 21-3, 21-6 in 13 minutes in the women’s singles.
In the men’s doubles, national champions Sanave Thomas and Rupesh Kumar streamrolled Reifer and Thorpe in 14 minutes. Aparna Balan and Ashwini Ponnappa then completed the 5-0 rout with a 21-8, 21-8 win over Eastmond and Watson.