Bhopal, Feb 6 () Weightlifters set two new national youth records and one meet mark on the first day of weightlifting competitions even as Maharashtra continued their surge at the top of the medal tally on day eight of the Khelo India Youth Games 2022 in Madhya Pradesh on Monday.
Also, hosts Madhya Pradesh (M.P.) continued their dominance in water sports, introduced for the first time at the Games, picking up both the Water Slalom gold medals on offer on the white-water rapids of Maheshwar. Maharashtra ended the day with 28 gold medals and a total of 83 medals while Haryana were lying second with 23 golds. M.P. had the same number of gold medals (23) as Haryana but were placed third on the tally.
RECORDS TUMBLE IN WEIGHTLIFTING
The big news of the day however came from the Basketball complex in Indore, the venue of the weightlifting competition, where three new records were created.
First, Vinatai Aher of Maharashtra, who won gold in the Girls’ 40 kg category, lifted 72kg in clean and jerk to create a new Games record. She lifted 57 kg in snatch for a total lift of 129 kg.
Then Dhanush L. of Tamil Nadu created a new national youth record en route to gold with a total lift of 192 kg in the Boys’ 49kg class. He lifted 84 kg in snatch and 108 kg in clean and jerk. The third record came via Asmita Dhone of Maharashtra in the Girls’ 45 kg category. She lifted 82 kg in clean and jerk to erase the previous national youth record in the format. Her best snatch lift was 61 kg and she eventually won silver behind statemate Akanksha Vyavahare, who won gold.
The lifter’s feat has now taken the total number of records created at the KIYG2022MP to seven, six of them being national youth records.
HOSTS SWEEP GOLD IN WATER SLALOM
The first day of the two-day water slalom competition began in Maheshwar and hosts M.P. won both gold medals on offer by quite a distance. In the Girls’ Canoe Slalom C-1 event, Mansi Batham won gold with a score of 128.596. Preeti Pal of Haryana won silver while Dhriti Maria of Karnataka bagged bronze.
In the Boys’ Kayak Slalom K-1 competition, it was the host Pradhyumna Singh Rathod who emerged victorious with a score of 76.850. Pynshmgain Kurbah of Meghalaya and Anak Chouhan of Gujarat were way behind for silver and bronze respectively.
SEMIS LINEUP SET IN FOOTBALL
At the Emerald Heights grounds in Indore, where the Boys’ football competition is being held, Karnataka beat Meghalaya 2-1, but both made it through to the semi-finals from Group B. In the other group, Punjab beat Arunachal 3-0 and qualified along with Kerala, from Group A.
Over at the Mulna stadium Balaghat, West Bengal lost to Manipur 2-3, but both teams made it through to the last four. They will be joined by Arunachal Pradesh and hosts Madhya Pradesh.
In other results, the traditional sport of Mallkhamb began at the Madhav Seva Nyas in Ujjain and Tamil Nadu were leading in the combined Boys’ and Girls’ team rankings followed by Gujarat and Haryana in the medal positions and end of the first day of competitions.
Tennis competitions also began at the Indore Tennis club and quite a few of the top seeds could not make it past round one. However, top seed Aryan Shah of Gujarat easily beat Aryan Arora of Punjab 6-0, 6-2 in the Boys’ draw to make it through.
Second seed Daksh Prasad of M.P. had a tougher 7-5, 6-2 victory over Karthik Kavin of Tamil Nadu, but third seed Rethin Pranav of Tamil Nadu was not that lucky, losing to Skandha Prasanna Rao of Karnataka 2-6, 6-2,6-4. Fourth seed Rushil Khosla of UP gave a walkover to Vansh Nandal of Haryana.
In the Girls’ singles, Tejsavi Dabas of Delhi got a walkover from Vaishnavi Adkar of Maharashtra, the top seed. Fourth seed S. Patil of Maharashtra, also won by walkover over Sanjana Sirimala of Telangana, while third seed M. Sawant of Maharashtra was a 6-1,6-2 winner over Lakshmi Gowda of Delhi. Finally, among the seeded players, Karnataka’s second seed Suhitha Maruri won 6-2, 6-0 over UP’s Hannah Nagpal.
bsk