Khelo India Youth Games: Maharashtra’s Siya Sawant and Odisha’s Mohammad Basha became the fastest athletes of the 6th Khelo India Youth Games while Bihar’s Durga Singh and Rahul Sarnaliya of Uttarakhand improved on the girls and boys 1500m meet records on the second day of athletics competition at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor stadium here on Wednesday.Sprinter Siya led from start to finish to stop the clock at 12.10 seconds to pip local hope Abhinaya Rajarajan (12.21sec). Maharashtra’s Rujula Bhosale took the bronze with a timing of 12.23 sec.
The boy’s 100m final was a much closer affair with Basha pulling away from Tamil Nadu’s Gokul Pandiyan in the last 20 meters to win the race with a timing of 10.81 sec. Gokul took the silver with a time of 10.89s while Odisha’s Pratik Maharana bagged the bronze with a time of 10.95 seconds.
A few minutes later, Durga dominated the girl’s 1500m race as she stopped the clock almost four seconds ahead of Rajasthan’s Muskan. Durga finished the race in 4:29.32 seconds with Muskan coming home in 4:33.95 seconds as both improved on the meet record of 4:35.45 set by Sneha in the Guwahati Games.
Sarnaliya then got on the record books in the boys 1500m race with a timing of 3:51.12 with his state-mate Priyanshu (3:54.01s) and Rajasthan’s Mayank Yadav (3:57.68s) taking home the silver and bronze respectively. The earlier record of 3:51.57s was held by Arjun Waskale.
Host Tamil Nadu and Odisha won three gold medals each from the athletics arena on Wednesday with Odisha’s Omkar Prasad Nanda winning both the Hammer Throw and Shot Put gold.
Meanwhile, Haryana surged ahead in the medals tally to second position on the back of seven gold medals from boxing and sweeping all three team gold medals on the final day of fencing to put pressure on defending champions Maharashtra, who relied on their gymnastics and cycling prowess to stay ahead.
Maharashtra gymnast Aaryan Davande clinched two gold medals from Parallel Bars and Vault to end his Khelo India campaign with four gold and a bronze.
Cyclists Vedant Jadhav from Maharashtra and Vimla Machra from Rajasthan also added another gold medal to their tally by winning the Keirin races at the Velodrome at TNPESU on Wednesday to end their campaign on a high.
Tamil Nadu also bagged the grand double in Squash with their girls and boys teams easily clinching the gold in the sports debut at the Khelo India Games. The girls team defeated Maharashtra 2-0 while the boys packed off Uttar Pradesh by the same margin.
In shooting, Samrat Rana of Haryana added the 10m Air Pistol gold to the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team gold he had won on Tuesday. Rana, who qualified for the final in third position, scored a total of 242.8 to pip Karnataka’s Jonathan Gavin Anthony by a whole point. Anshul of Rajasthan took the bronze with a score of 221.3 points.
