Khelo India Youth Games: Maharashtra weightlifter Arati Tatgunti and A.V Susmitha of Andhra Pradesh set new National Youth Records to clinch gold medals in the girls’ 49 kg and 55kg categories respectively on a day Haryana bagged four of the five gold on offer in wrestling to close in on second-placed Tamil Nadu in the 6th Khelo India Youth Games 2023 on Saturday.In a keenly fought three-way contest between Arati, her statemate Soumya Dalvi and Assam’s Panchami Sonowal at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium in the 49kg category, the former emerged victorious lifting a total weight of 170, including 75 in snatch and 95 in Clean and Jerk, thereby creating new records in snatch, clean & jerk and overall.
In fact, silver medallist Sonowal also improved on the earlier marks, thereby forcing Arati to push herself to go for higher weights and the Maharashtra lifter executed her lifts with precision to hand her state second gold medal of the day from the weightlifting arena.
Sonowal, who had won the gold medal in the last edition of the Games, went for a 97kg lift in her last Clean and Jerk attempt to clinch the gold medal but injured her back in the process and had to be taken to the hospital for scans.
Later, Susmitha set a new overall record with a total lift of 173 kg and clinched the gold medal.
But it was Haryana, who were the biggest mover on the medals table as they dominated the opening day of the wrestling competition. Monika (girls 46kg), Neha (girls 57kg), Amarjeet (boys 51kg Greco Roman) and Vinay (boys 92kg freestyle) clinched the gold medals with comfortable victories on their respective opponents and their girls’ hockey team bagged their fifth consecutive title with a 1-0 over Madhya Pradesh.
Maharashtra continued to stay on top of the medals table adding four more gold medals to their tally. Lifter Mahadev Vadar (boys 67kg), wrestler Samarth (boys 60kg GR) and swimmer Rutuja Rajadnya added a gold medal each to take the state’s tally to.
Rajadnya became the fastest girls’ swimmer of the Khelo India Youth Games at the SDAT Aquatic complex by winning the 50m freestyle race with a timing of 29.18 sec. Assam’s Jahnabi Kashyap and Subranshini Priyadarshini clinched the silver and bronze respectively.
The honour of the fastest swimmer in boys went to Jananjoy Jyoti Hazarika of Assam, who touched the wall with a timing of 25.53 sec. Salil Bhagwat of Maharashtra and Gujarat’s Heer Pitroda took the silver and bronze respectively.
Earlier, cyclist Alanis Lilly Cubeleo of Kerala won the girls’ 60km individual road race while Chandigarh’s Jai Dogra topped the boys’ 30km time trial at ECR. West Bengal and Telangana added a gold medal each to their tally from the Guru Nanak College shooting range.
Ashmit Chatterjee of West Bengal clinched the 10m Air Rifle gold with a final score of 250.9 with Haryana’s Himanshu (250.6) and Manvendra Singh Shekhawant of Rajasthan (227.6) bagging the silver and bronze respectively.
In the 25m Rapid Fire pistol event, Telangana’s K Tanishq Murlidhar Naidu scored 19 points to take the gold. Andhra Pradesh’s Mukhesh Nilavalli (18) and Maharashtra’s Swaraj Bhondave (16) won the silver and bronze respectively.
