ANJANA BAGS GOLD

Anjana Dhavalu Thamake clinched the third gold for India by winning the girl's 800m race on a productive day for the country on the penultimate day of the second Asian Youth Games on Thursday.

Rochelle Macfarlane Maria also picked up a silver in girl's triple jump while Garvit Batra in boy's tennis singles and the women's squash team bagged a bronze each.

The men's squash team also assured at least a silver as the trio of Madhav Yogesh Dhingra, Kush Kumar and Vijay Meena advanced to the final after defeating Hong Kong, China 2-1 in the semi-finals. The final will be held today.

With one day left in the Games, India's medal tally swelled to 11 (three gold, three silver, five bronze) to remain at the ninth spot. Thamake's gold and Maria's silver medals on the concluding day of the track and field events ensured that the controversy-marred athletics campaign ended on a high after 18 Indian athletes were thrown out of the Games due to overage.

Thamake clocked a personal best of two minutes 11.47 seconds to bag the gold ahead of Savinder Kaur (2:14.14) of Malaysia and Sri Lanka's K Dilhani Fernando (2:15.72).

Thamake led the eight-athlete field all through and won the race comfortably.

Maria jumped to her personal best of 12.38m which she came up in her fifth and penultimate attempt to win the silver. Ma Yue of China won the gold with an effort of 12.55m while Lee Hyeonjeong of Korea was third with 12.28m.

In tennis, Garvit Batra lost his men's singles semifinal match to Jurence Zosimo Mendoza of Philippines 4-6 7-6 0-6 to settle for a bronze. Harshit Kaur and Adya Advai also lost 0-2 to their Malaysian opponents in their semi-final match in women's squash team event to settle for a bronze.