Indians sweep 13 golds in SAF games

Colombo: Indian athletes won 13 gold medals on the fourth day of the 10th South Asian Federation (SAF) Games on Monday and made a fine start in the hockey competition with a 2-0 win over Pakistan.

The swimmers won six more gold to take their golden aggregate to 18, rowers won three to make it seven out of seven gold, the shooters won two and one each was won in the squash and table tennis for a successful and satisfying day at the games that India has always dominated.

Monday was a day dominated by the swimmers. Lekha Kamath won her fourth gold of the competition and set a games record in the 100m butterfly with a time of 1:04.51 seconds.

Mumbai-based Lekha also clinched the 100m freestyle gold with 1:00.76 seconds, while compatriot Neerja Balakrishna (1:02.17) and Sri Lanka's Mayumi Raheem (1:02.85 seconds) won the silver and bronze.

Arjun Muralidharan bagged the men's 100m backstroke gold in 56.67 seconds, while Fariha Zaman won another gold, this time in women's 50m backstroke with a time of 31.70 seconds.

In the women's 400m individual medley, V. Tejaswani (5:16.21 seconds) and compatriot Madhavi Giri (5:31.72) gave more for India to cheer.

The Indian men's 400m freestyle relay team of Arjun Muralidharan, Rohit Havaldar, Sandeep Na and Verdhaval won the gold in 3:37.41 seconds.

Muralidharan won a silver and he achieved the feat in the 100m backstroke by clocking 1:00.50 seconds, while the bronze also went to India as Sandeep Nagar Anthal clocked 1:00.76 seconds.

Sri Lanka's Andrew Abeysinghe stopped India's total domination as he won the gold in this event with a time of 1:01.11 seconds.

For the Indian rowers, success came in the men's lightweight single scull, doubles scull and coxless fours at the Bolgoda Lake.

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Anil Kumar clinched the lightweight men's singles scull with a time of 7:24:99 seconds, Manu Mathew and Bijender Singh won the double scull in 6:46:88 seconds and the team of Narayan Singh, Haridev Kadyan, Saji Thomas and Manjit Singh won the light weight coxless fours gold in 6:12:64 seconds.

In shooting, Radhika Barale won the gold in the women's 10-metre air rifle with a score of 394/400 points in the preliminary round and 104.1 points in the finals for an aggregate of 498.1/500.

Sharmin Akhter of Pakistan scored 493.4 points (390 prelims + 103.1 finals) to finish second for the silver, while Navdeep managed 492.2 points to claim the bronze.

Radhika then teamed up with Navdeep Kaur Dhillon and Raj Kumari to win the team gold with a cumulative score of 1,175 points in the 10m rifle event at the Welisara shooting range.

Top ranked Joshna Chinappa retained the women's squash title by defeating compatriot Dipika Pallikal 9-6, 9-6, 9-1 in the final at the Gymkhana Club.

And in table tennis, the men's team gave India the gold with a 3-1 win over Sri Lanka in the final at the St Thomas College.

Sri Lanka's Thilina Piyadasa surprised Soumyadeep Roy 11-6, 10-12, 11-6, 11-5 in the first match of the final.

But Commonwealth Games champion Achanta Sharath Kamal defeated Rohan Sirisena 11-7, 11-6, 11-8 and then national champion Shubhajit Saha sealed the gold with a 11-5, 11-7, 9-11, 11-3 over Tharindu Samaraweera.

In the four-nation hockey competition, India defeated Pakistan 2-0 in Matale, over 100 kilometres from Colombo.

Raghunath scored through a penalty corner in the 16th minute and Gurbaj Singh consolidated the lead with his 61st-minute strike to give India three points.