37th National Games: Gujarat's Sunil Jinabhai breaks record to win steeplechase gold

PANAJI: Sunil Joliya Jinabhai of Gujarat broke the Games record to clinch the gold medal in the Men’s 3000m while swimmers Nina Venkatesh and Dhinidhi Desinghu of Karnataka extended their 100% win record to claim their fifth gold in the 37th National Games on Friday.

Hosts Goa registered their best performance of the Games winning six gold medals in Sepak Takraw to climb up the standings chart where the top three remain unchanged.

Maharashtra continued to stay on the top of the medal table with a total of 162 medals including 60 gold, 49 silver and 53 bronze.

Services Sports Control Board (SSCB) is catching up with the leaders, taking their gold medal tally to 40 after some strong performances in combat sports. Haryana remained in third position with a total of 91 medals including 32 gold, 24 silver and 35 bronze.

At the Athletics Stadium, Bambolim, Jinabhai finished the race with a timing of 8:37.15 s to break the existing Games record of 8:43.05 s in the name of Shankar Lal Swami, which was set in the last edition.

Asian Games medallist Vithya Ramraj of Tamil Nadu won the gold in the Women’s 400m Hurdles with a timing of 56.88 seconds while Gujarat’s Dhaval Utekar won the gold in the men’s category with a timing of 51.20s. Preeti Lamba of Haryana secured the gold in the women’s 3000m Steeplechase with a timing of 10:19.78s.

In the Men’s Javelin Asian Games silver medallist, Kishore Kumar Jeena had to be satisfied with a bronze. SSCB’s Shivpal Yadav and D.P Manu won gold and silver respectively. Upcoming High jumper, Pooja won the gold in the women’s High Jump with a best jump of 1.80m.

Vithya Ramraj dipped ahead of Jisna Mathew at the finish line to give Tamil Nadu the gold in the 4x400m Mixed Relay event ahead of Kerala to conclude some brilliant action in athletics at the games.

At the Campal Swimming Pool, Karnataka’s young swimming stars Nina Venkatesh and Dhinidhi Desinghu guided their team to gold in the mixed team 4x100 Freestyle Relay. They now have five gold medals each with one more day of competition left.

Sajan Prakash of Kerala, Srihari Nataraj of Karnataka, Bhavya Sachdeva and Kushagra Rawat of Delhi each won their third gold medal of the Games on a day where four more Games records were broken in the pool.

Sagar Bhargava piped statemate and Paris 2024 Olympics quota winner Sarabjot Singh in a shoot-off, to win the first gold medal in Shooting, at the Mandrem Shooting Range.

Sagar, competing in the Men’s 10m Air Pistol for Haryana, held his nerve to shoot a 10.2 in his shoot-off shot, as the India international settled for silver with a weak 9.3. The two Haryanvis were tied at 238.8 at the end of the 24-shot final. Subhash Sihag of the Services won bronze with 217.3.

Haryana continued their dominance in the wrestling mat, winning five out of the six gold medals on offer with Uttar Pradesh winning the other gold.

Hosts Goa won six out of the eight gold medals on offer in Sepak Takraw at the Fatorda Multipurpose Hall. Goa men swept all four gold medals while the women won two golds to go along with one silver and bronze. Manipur won the other two gold medals in the event.

At the Goa Engineering College, Farmagudi, Olympian Deepika Kumari qualified for the final of the Women’s Recurve event after beating Haryana’s Tamanna 6-4 in the semis. She will face Sangeeta of Haryana who won her semi-final match 6-2 against Gujarat’s Bhagora Vargishkumar.

In the men’s category, giant-killer Mukesh Boro, who had beaten Olympian Atanu Das in the second round, qualified for the final by beating SSCB’s Gora Ho in the shoot-off.

He will face Uttarakhand’s Kartik Rana, who also created an upset in the first round by beating Olympian Jayanta Talukdar. Kartik comprehensively beat Bhagwat Singh of Chhattisgarh 7-1 in the semis to book his place in the finals.