Chandigarh-based varsity wins 10 gold medals, rises to top of table
Three new Games records were created on the day, all in athletics, at Guru Gobind Singh Sports College tracks in Lucknow
: Chandigarh’s Panjab University won 10 gold medals on Wednesday to reach the top of the medal tally at the 3rd Khelo India University Games (KIUG), pushing Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU), Amritsar, and defending champions Jain University, Karnataka, to the second and third positions, respectively.
The Chandigarh-based university picked up five golds in rowing, two each in athletics, shooting and one in judo, to finish with a tally of 21 gold, 12 silver and 16 bronze medals at the end of Day 9 of KIUG-2022.
Three new Games records were created on the day, all in athletics, at the Guru Gobind Singh Sports College tracks in Lucknow. The men’s pole vault,
women’s javelin and heptathlon KIUG records were broken, and new ones set. Sidharth AK of Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam (MGU, Kottayam) cleared 4.90m to create a new record in men’s pole vault.
Harita of Chaudhary Bansi Lal University (CBLU) broke the old women’s javelin record with a throw of 50.14m en route to a gold medal. Harita’s mate Pooja then made a new Games mark in heptathlon, accumulating 4991 points over her seven events. A total of 15 golds were decided on the final day of the
athletics competition and MGU, Kottayam were the most successful with three golds.
In rowing, the table toppers bagged five of the 15 golds on offer on the final day at the Ramgarh Taal in Gorakhpur. Punjabi University (Patiala) picked up three, while Calicut University won two gold medals. Overall, the Chandigarhbased varsity won 11 gold, four silver and six bronze medals in rowing for a total of 21 medals, a big reason for their top position in the standings. Panjab University’s winners on the day included Ravinder and Dinesh Kumar in the light-weight men’s doubles sculls and Sonu Verma, Ajeeth, Sudarshan Lamba and Gurpreet Singh in the light-weight men’s fours.
The same university’s victors also included Khushpreet Kaur and Diljot Kaur in the lightweight women’s doubles sculls, Khushpreet, Diljot, Gurbani and Poonam in the women’s fours sculls and finally Sukhdeep, Rajat, Sahil and Aditya in the men’s fours 500-metre races.
In shooting, Olympian Manu Bhaker and India international Sarabjot Singh won the 10m air pistol mixed team gold medal with a facile 16-2 victory over Varun Dubey and Vibhuti Bhatia of DU, at the Karni Singh Shooting Range in Delhi. These were the first of two golds won at the range by Panjab University with Prabh Pratap Singh Chahal and Parinaaz Dhaliwal winning the mixed team skeet competition. It was Parinaaz’s second gold at the KIUG 2022, after she had won the women’s individual skeet gold earlier. Across three venues of Lucknow, finalists in the recurve archery and football disciplines were also identified on Wednesday. At the BBD University Cricket Ground, Guru Jambeshwar University (GJU) and PU reached two finals each in recurve archery. Pawan of the latter will take on Ankit Rana of Chaudhary Charan Singh University in the men’s recurve final, while Bhargaviben Bhagora of Hemchandracharya North Gujarat University (HNGU) will clash with Anshika Kumari of Kolhan University, for the women’s individual Recurve title on Friday.
On the same day, Adamas University of Kolkata will take on Punjabi University in the men’s football final at the GGSSC, Lucknow. Also, at the Ekana Sportz City, GJU will take on CBLU in the women’s football final. While Punjabi University were 2-1 winners over MGU, Kottayam in their semi-final on Wednesday, Adamas had to come through penalties over GNDU, Amritsar. GJU, Hisar were 3-2 winners over GNDU in the first women’s semis while CBLU defeated Annamalai University, Chidambaram.