Gandhinagar, (Asian independent) Olympic silver medallist weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, pathbreaking fencer Bhavani Devi, wrestler Divya Kakaran and local shooter Elavenil Valarivan lived up to their billing to clinch gold medals in their respective events with relative ease in the 36th National Games here on Friday.
The athletics arena at IIT, Gandhinagar was on fire, though, with as many as nine Games’ records falling during the course of the day.
Munita Prajapati (Uttar Pradesh), daughter of a construction labour, and 17-year-old Parvej Khan (Services) overshadowed all with their feats. Munita set the first record of this edition in the Women’s 20km walk, clocking a commendable 1 hour 38 minutes 20 seconds.
Parvej Khan then broke renowned Bahadur Prasad’s 28-year-old Games Record in t’e men’s 1500m, slashing nearly two seconds off his personal best time to win the metric mile gold in 3:40.89.
The 2018 Asian Games decathlon champion Swapna Barman, competing in Madhya Pradesh colours here, claimed the women’s high jump record with a clearance of 1.83m while Praveen Chithravel (Tamil Nadu) made light of a depleted triple jump field to win gold with a Games Record effort of 16.68m.
Damneet Singh (Punjab) in the men’s hammer throw and Kiran Baliyan (Uttar Pradesh) in women’s shot put also entered the record books. In the men’s 100m semifinals, Amlan Borgohain (Assam) also broke the National Games Record, set at 10.45 seconds by Haryana’s Dharambir Singh in Thiruvananthapuram in 2015.
Amlan Borgohain, who has been in good form this season, stopped the clock at 10.28 seconds, two-hundredths of a second outside the National Record held by Amiya Kumar Mallick since 2016.
Elsewhere, powered by Ankita Raina, Gujarat women booked their berth in the final with an easy win over Karnataka. They will start favourites in the gold medal match against Maharashtra at the Riverside Sports Complex on Saturday.
In Gandhinagar, Bhavani Devi (Tamil Nadu) completed a hat-trick of women’s sabre individual gold medals in the National Games. Having barely slept after flying in from her training base in France and having carried the Tamil Nadu flag in the athletes’ parade yesterday, she spent a productive day at the Mahatma Mandir Complex, asserting her primacy as India’s best Sabre fencer.
Meanwhile, Divya Kakaran (Uttar Pradesh) stopped a Haryana sweep of all six gold medals at stake on the opening day of the wrestling competition. She won the women’s 76kg class title, beating Haryana’s Reetika in the quarterfinals and Rohini Satya Shivani (Telangana) and Rani (Himachal Pradesh) with a measure of comfort in the subsequent bouts.
Haryana men and Odisha women claimed the Rugby 7s gold medals respectively with victories over Maharashtra teams. Haryana men played a better second half to sprint away from 7-7 at the break to a 19-7 win. Odisha women, who stunned National Champions Bihar in the semifinals, dominated their title clash, opening up a 15-0 lead in the first half in a 22-0 win.
Haryana scored a golden double in Netball, their men’s team defeated Telangana 75-73 in a thriller that went to the wire and their women quelled Punjab’s challenge 53-49.
