Guwahati: It was gold rush for India on the opening day of the South Asian Games with the country’s wrestlers, swimmers and weightlifters showing their regional dominance by making a near clean sweep of top honours here on Saturday.
India clinched 14 gold, and five silver medals on a productive day to top the medals tally with an overall count of 19. Sri Lanka, despite having a higher overall medal count of 21, occupied the second spot in the table owing to a lesser tally of gold medals (4).
Wrestlers were the stars for India, grabbing as many as five gold medals followed by the swimmers who clinched four gold and three silver medals.
The weightlifters added three gold medals to the tally after the cyclists had opened India’s account with two gold and an equal number of silver medals in the morning.
Three women and two male grapplers finished on top of the podium as the proceedings went on expected lines on the opening day of the competitions.
Rajneesh and Ravinder bagged the gold in the men’s 65kg and 57kg divisions respectively.
In the women’s wrestling, Priyanka Singh claimed the top position in the 48kg, while Manisha won gold in the 60kg and Archana Tomar clinched the yellow metal in the 55kg categories.
Asian Games bronze medallist Sandeep Sejwal (men’s 200m breaststroke), Shivani Kataria (women’s 200m freestyle) and the women’s 100m freestyle relay team set new Games records on the way to gold.
In Shillong, Indian archers assured themselves of four gold and as many silver medals in the individual recurve and compound sections.
