Mondal bags triple gold, Maharashtra crosses 200 mark in Khelo India

West Bengal’s Soubrity Mondal took over the swimming pool with a splash by winning three gold medals while Maharashtra’s medal haul still remains undisputed on top as they crossed the 200-medal mark in the ongoing Khelo India Youth Games in Guwahati on Monday (January 20).

With the triple gold streak from the pool, Mondal and Kenisha Gupta joined fellow swimmer Shivangi Sarma (Assam), gymnast Priyanka Dasgupta (Tripura), rhythmic gymnast Asmi Badade and cyclist Pooja Danole (both Maharashtra) as well as artistic gymnast Jatin Kanojia (Uttar Pradesh) as owners of four gold medals.

Maharashtra remained entrenched at the top of the medals tally with 63 gold. The state drew immense joy in crossing the 200-medal mark, finishing the day with 204 after despite its women’s U-21 basketball team losing the final to Kerala 63-88 in the title clash.

Haryana’s only gold came through their girl’s U-17 hockey team, beating Jharkhand. Haryana led 2-1 through goals by Pinki and Dimple but Deepika Soreng completed her brace in the last minute to force a shootout. Kanika Siwach and Sonam scored for Haryana while Deepika Soreng found the mark for Jharkhand.

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Mondal won gold in women’s U-21 200m Individual Medley in 2:32.52 and 200m Backstroke in 2: 26.05, making the most of the absence of Gujarat ace Maana Patel, who tore an ankle ligament at the start of the 100m race a couple of days ago.

The West Bengal swimmer then helped the state’s 4x100m Medley Relay squad win gold in the face of stiff competition from Assam. Kenisha Gupta and Srihari Nataraj won two gold each on Monday.

Chandigarh won the boys under-17 hockey gold, also via the penalty shoot-out after sharing four goals in regulation time with Uttar Pradesh. A goal in the final quarter by Sumit helped Chandigarh draw level with Uttar Pradesh a second time to force the shoot-out. In the bronze medal play-off, a last-ditch goal by Arshdeep Singh Jr saw Punjab take Odisha into the shoot-out.

Assam’s Suditya Boruah handed Maharashtra weightlifters a rare defeat at the Bhogeswari Phukanani Indoor Stadium, winning the boys under-17 89kg class gold with a total lift of 251kg. He left Maharashtra lifters Ritesh Rajendra Mhaishale (248kg) and Sanidhya Sanjay More (243kg) in his wake to give the home crowd much to cheer as they won two of the six gold at stake on Monday.

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Sikkim joined the medals chart with a bronze from weightlifting. Prema Tshering Sherpa was grinning as he made it to the podium, thanks in no uncertain terms to Uttarakhand’s Bittu Rajput registering no lift in snatch and Haryana’s Parveen failing to lift his chosen entry clean and jerk load of 150kg in three attempts. Parveen was the leader after the snatch, with a best of 124kg.

In badminton under-21 contest, top-seeded Satish Kumar (Tamil Nadu) will take on No. 2 Amit Rathore (Madhya Pradesh) in the final. The top two seeds Unnati Bisht (Uttarakhand) and Mir Tasnim Irfan Ali (Gujarat) will clash for girls’ gold.

Punjab and Kerala ran out easy winners in the men’s and women’s U-21 basketball finals as they beat Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra respectively.

In the under-17 final, Rajasthan overcame Delhi’s third-quarter surge of 30 points with smart play to win 86-79. The girls’ final was thrilling as Tamil Nadu scored two points in the final minute and held on for dear life to win 59-57.

(With inputs from agencies)