Glasgow, July 31:
Olympics bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt and Babita Kumari breezed their way to gold medals as wrestlers continued to rule the roost by bagging an impressive two yellow metals for India on the eighth day of the 20th Commonwealth Games, here today.
While Yogeshwar (men’s 65kg freestyle) and Babita Kumari (women’s 55kg) won golds, Geetika Jhakar (women’s 63kg) failed to match her compatriots and managed a silver on the wrestling mat for India.
It was good news for India in other disciplines as well as young Dipa Karmarkar today scripted history by becoming the first Indian woman gymnast to win a medal at the Commonwealth Games by bagging a bronze in the vault event.
By virtue of this two golds and Dipa’s bronze, India have moved have consolidated their sixth position in medal standings with a total haul of 44 medals — 12 gold, 19 silver and 13 bronze.
England were at at the top of the chart with a total of 115 medals followed by Australia (110), Canada (56), Scotland (41) and New Zealand (39).
The Indians enjoyed a good day on the final day of wrestling competition as Yogeshwar hardly broke sweat en route to his gold medal effort by using his trademark ‘fitele’ (leg-twisting) technique to great effect.
Yogeshwar first beat Alex Gladkov of Scotland 4-0 and then easily defeated another Scottish wrestler Gareth Jones in the quarterfinals by employing the same leg-twisting technique he had used while winning bronze in the London Olympics.
In the semifinals, Yogeshwar successfully used his favourite technique again to get the better of Sri Lanka’s Chamara Perera in just two minutes and three seconds.
Yogeshwar won with a 0-5 verdict after taking a 10-0 lead on technical points.
He continued his dominance in the final and made light work of his Canadian opponent Jevon Balfour to clinch the gold medal in just 1:53 seconds.
But it all started with Babita who completely dominated her gold medal bout against Brittanee Laverdure to seal the contest 9-2 in her favour and give India its first yellow metal of the day.
However, it was some sort of disappointment for India in the women’s 63kg as Geetika was no match for her Candian opponent Danielle Lappage. The world junior champion overpowered the Indian grappler 7-0 to pocket the gold with consummate ease.
Meanwhile, it was silver lining for India in gymnastics as 20-year-old Dipa collected 14.366 points to finish third in the women’s vault final at the SSE Hydro here.
The gold went to England’s Claudia Fragapane who got 14.633 points while Elsabeth Black was second with 14.433 points.
In the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, Ashish Kumar became the first Indian gymnast to win a medal at the CWG by winning a silver in vault and bronze in floor events.
On the hockey turf, India produced a clinical performance to breeze past South Africa 5-2 to qualify for the semi-final.(PTI)
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