Golden day for India at Gold Coast
Mary Kom, two others claim gold
Gold Coast: The legendary M C Mary Kom (48kg) became India's first woman boxer to claim a Commonwealth Games gold before men joined the gold quest through Gaurav Solanki (52kg) and Vikas Krishan (75kg) as the team rejoiced its best ever medal haul at the mega-event here on Saturday.
Settling for silver medals were Amit Panghal (49kg), Manish Kaushik (60kg) and Satish Kumar (+91kg) after losing closely-contested bouts here.
India will be going back with nine boxing medals from the current edition, two more than their previous best at the 2010 Delhi Games. Earlier, Mohammed Husammuddin (56kg), Naman Tanwar (91kg) and Manoj Kumar (69kg) had settled for bronze medals after semifinal losses.
"Best ever medal haul, how can I be not be be happy, I am quite happy. The bar has been set pretty high by this performance but it makes things easier for us going forward," India's High Performance Director Santiago Nieva said.
"Credit to the boxers for the way they fought, even those who lost gave fighting performances," he added. The star
of the day was without a shred of doubt Mary Kom -- a 35-year-old five-time world champion and Olympic bronze-medallist.
Manika stuns World No. 4 again to win historic singles gold in TT
Gold Coast: A marauding Manika Batra created history by becoming the first Indian woman table tennis player to win a singles gold at the Commonwealth Games while Sharath Kamal and G Sathiyan went down fighting in the men's doubles to settle for silver, here on Saturday.
World No. 58 Batra's dream run in the quadrennial event continued as she blanked 50th-ranked Yu Mengyu of Singapore 4-0 (11-7, 11-6, 11-2, 11-7) in a one-sided final.
However, it was the semifinal win over World No. 4 Feng Tianwei that meant more for the 22-year-old.
The Delhi-based paddler showed that her crucial victory against multiple Olympic medallist Feng in the team final was no fluke as she edged out the mighty Singaporean 4-3 (12-10, 5-11, 11-8, 5-11, 5-11, 11-9, 13-11) in the semifinals.
The Indian foxed Feng for the second time in a row with smart use of her pimpled rubber for both defense and offense. Batra showed remarkable composure and maturity to overcome a 2-3 deficit in a high-pressure final.
"This is my first individual medal in this big tournament and I am feeling really proud," said Batra after her phenomenal effort.
On her overall Games experience, she added: "The experience was amazing - I defeated the world number four twice and now Yu to win gold. I am feeling really happy and very proud for my country."
