Commonwealth Games 2010 Day 4: India retains second spot with total 34 medal haul

By Victor DSouza, Doha
Various sources
Bellevision Media Network

08 October 2010: The Indian medal hunt continued on the fourth day of competitions in the Commonwealth Games which enabled the hosts to retain their second spot in the medals ladder. The hosts scooped up a bagful of three gold and silver medals apiece, apart from four bronze, to take their haul to 34 comprising 14 gold, 11 silver and 9 bronze. But Australia continued to widen their overall lead over the rest and grabbed 33 gold, 19 silver and 17 bronze. England, trying hard to catch up with India, were two gold medals behind the home nation and a red-hot race to capture the second place in the Games seems to have started with Canada too within striking distance of the other two with a tally of 10 gold.

 

India`s ten-medal scoop came from expected quarters – the shooting range where pistol shooter Gurpreet Singh struck a double by combining forces with Vijay Kumar and Omkar Singh to take home the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Pairs and 10m Air Pistol Pairs titles. Haryana`s Geeta gave India their third gold of the day on the first day of women`s wrestling, that made its debut, by comprehensively winning the 55kg freestyle event.

 

The shooting gold medals provided by the men`s pistol wielders took the country`s overall gold tally from the Dr Karni Singh range to 6, showing how much the marksmen and women have contributed in keeping India`s flag flying high. Grappler Geeta trounced her rival Emily Bensted of Australia in the 55 kg category final. She entered the gold medal round by defeating Lovina Odohi Edward of Nigeria, but her teammate - 63kg grappler Suman Kundu - lost in the semi-finals.

 

 

 

Men`s double trap shooting ace Ronjon Sondhi got a silver medal along with the men`s archery compound team and women`s 48kg freestyle grappler Nirmala Devi. The four bronze medals came in archery (women`s team compound event), woman grappler Suman Kundu (63kg) 77kg weightlifter Sudhir Kumar and Ashish Kumar, a surprise medallist in men`s gymnastics (floor exercise).

 

Strong signals of more medals in the offing for the hosts came later from the star-studded boxing outfit with Asian gold-medallist Suranjoy Singh (52kg) and Amandeep Singh (49kg) advancing to the quarterfinals and defending champion Akhil Kumar (56kg) booking a place in the last 16. On yet another day of dominance by Indian boxers, a packed audience at the dome-shaped arena was treated to some flamboyance by Akhil, tactful boxing by Amandeep and loads of energy by Suranjoy.

 

In tennis Leander Paes and Sania Mirza, gold medal favourites, were stunned in straight sets by Colin Fleming and Jocelyn Rae of Scotland in the quarter finals. Rushmi Chakravarthi also got eliminated from the women`s singles quarter finals but all others, including men`s singles top seed Somdev Devvarman, progressed to the semi finals. In table tennis Indian women defeated England 3-0 to enter the gold medal round while the men entered the semi finals ousting South Africa 3-1.

 

 

 

 

But glitches continued to dog the Games with the organisers confronted with the problem of several swimmers, mostly from the England contingent, complaining of pool-related sickness. With reports emerging that the Games swimming pool may be contaminated, leading to an increase of athletes in the sick bay, the organisers were today left to do some emergency fire-fighting at the customary morning press conference. Commonwealth Games Federation chief Michael Fennell and Organising Committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi promised an inquiry and a solution.

 

More trouble came the organisers’ way following a freak accident at the Games Village that resulted in three top officials of the Uganda delegation, including their Chef De Mission, getting injured in a freak accident and had to be hospitalised for treatment. On Tuesday night when the official games car they were in braked suddenly and hit the hi-tech underground sharp metal stoppers that had sprung up as they were entering the Village. All of them have been discharged from the hospital after being treated for different injuries but are being currently monitored in the Village.

 

Delhi can host the Olympics, the greatest international sporting event, says Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, deriving confidence from hosting of the Commonwealth Games and seeking to put behind the controversies surrounding it. Notwithstanding cynicism associated with the build-up to the Commonwealth Games, Dikshit pointed out that Delhi has already developed world class stadia and other infrastructure and the city is now "confident" of hosting Olympics.

 

The latest medals tally at the end of day 4:

 

Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
Australia	33	19	17	69
India	14	11	9	34
England	12	23	11	46
Canada	10	2	11	23
South Africa	5	5	6	16
Nigeria	3	4	5	12
Malaysia	3	3	4	10
Singapore	2	2	4	8
Scotland	1	2	3	6
Kenya	1	1	1	3
Jamaica	1	0	0	1
Uganda	1	0	0	1
New Zealand	0	7	3	10
Wales	0	5	2	7
Sri Lanka	0	1	1	2
Cameroon	0	1	1	2
Pakistan	0	1	0	1
Trinidad and Tobago	0	0	2	2
Isle of Man	0	0	2	2
Northern Ireland	0	0	1	1
Cyprus	0	0	1	1
Namibia	0	0	1	1