Maharashtra swimmers take them to top of medals tally at KISG
By HARPAL SINGH BEDI
NEW DELHI :Maharashtra buoyed by four gold medals from the swimming pool besides two more from athletics and one from wrestling moved clear of the tight pack of gold medal winners to get to the top of the tally after Day 4 in the Khelo India School Games. They also had 11 silver and 12 bronze for a total of 39 medals.
The next three states all had 12 gold each, but Delhi edged ahead of Haryana and Kerala on the basis of better hauls in silver and bronze medals.Hosts Delhi, who won five gold on Saturday, had the most medals at 44 with 12 gold, 13 silver and 19 bronze.
In the third spot was Haryana with 12 gold, 10 silver and 11 bronze for 33 medals while Karnataka had 12 gold, nine silver and eight bronze for a total of 29 medals.
Maharashtra dominated the swimming pool as Kenisha Gupta and Neel Roy won two gold each in Boys and Girls sections. Kenisha won two gold in Girls 50m freestyle and Girls 200 individual medal, while her teammate Neel won the Boys 50m freestyle and 200m Medley.
Srihari Nataraj of Karnataka, who has been among the stars of these Games, won the 200m backstroke to complete a double – he won the 100m backstroke earlier in the week. However, he was beaten to the second place in 50m freestyle by Neel Roy. But Nataraj did pick up a gold in the boys 4 x 100m medley relay.
On Saturday, the concluding day of athletics, the big star was the shy Tamil Nadu quarter miler Sumathira Balakrishnan, who won the 400m and then anchored her team to a fine win in the relay.
Shot putter Abhishek Singh of Uttar Pradesh, who won the first gold medal of these games with a throw of 18.73 metres, was declared as the best male athlete, while Kerala’s Aparna Roy, who won the 100m hurdles event in 14.02 seconds, was adjudged the best women athlete.
The athletics events came to end with three states, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharashtra accounting for five gold medals each from a total of 36 that were contested over the last four days.
Tamil Nadu, however, had the most medals overall with eight silver and six bronze also for a total of 19 medals. Kerala had a total of 17 medals that included 5 gold, 7 silver and 5 bronze medals. Maharashtra also had five gold besides 4 silver and 2 bronze for a total of 11 medals. Tamil Nadu (six gold), Uttar Pradesh and Kerala with five gold each followed the top four states.
