Khelo India Youth Games: Defending champions Maharashtra opened their gold medal account at the Khelo India Youth Games 2023 with gymnast Aaryan Davande clinching the Artistic All-Round crown at the SDAT Aquatics complex here on Monday.Davande accumulated a total of 73.200 points to pip Uttar Pradesh’s Pranav Mishra (72.470 pts) to the top spot. Harshit of UP clinched the bronze with a score of 71.700 points in the event where the boys had to perform on six different apparatus to decide the winner.
The gold medal helped Maharashtra jump to third place in the overall standings with a total of 10 medals, including four silver and six bronze.
Hosts Tamil Nadu continued to top the medal chart with five gold medals.
Cyclist J. Srimathi added a gold to the state’s tally in Girls’ Time Trial at the TNPESU Velodrome with a timing of 39.752 while her state-mate R. Tamilara bagged the bronze medal with a time of 41.028. Rajasthan’s Vimla took home the silver.
In the Boys’ Time Trial, Telangana’s Aashirwad Saxena clinched the gold medal with a timing of 1:12.652s with Maharashtra’s Vedant Jadhav (1:13.362s) and Haryana’s Gurmoor Poonia (1:14.192s) bagging the silver and bronze respectively.
Elsewhere, at the Nehru Park squash courts, girls’ top seed Pooja Arthi stormed into the individual final with a facile 11-5, 11-4, 11-5 win over state-mate Deepika V.
In hockey competition, Haryana and Odisha booked their semifinal berths in the girls’ category from Group B with two wins apiece while Madhya Pradesh assured themselves a spot in the last four stage with a 1-0 win over Chhattisgarh.
