Shooters, athletes swell Indian tally

Guwahati : India's remarkable domination went uncontested for the fifth successive day as shooters, wushu players and track-and-field athletes annihilated competition to sweep most of the gold up for grabs on the fifth day of the 12th South Asian Games here on Wednesday.

With a whopping 194 medals, including 117 gold, 61 silver and 16 bronze medals, in the kitty, India sat pretty at the top of the table. Following the hosts in the second place were Sri Lanka with an overall count of 133 (24 gold, 46 silver and 63 bronze medals).

The blue-riband event of athletics was expected to trigger gold rush for India and it went pretty much that way with athletes contributing 10 gold medals to the tally today.

Mayookha Johny (women's triple jump), M R Poovamma (women's 400m), Neeraj Chopra (men's javelin throw), Arokya Rajiv (men's 400m), Arjun (discus throw), J Surendhar (men's 110m hurdles), Gayathry (women's 100m hurdles), Ankit Sharma (men's long jump) and Sahana Kumari (women's high jump) and T Gopi (men's 10000m) were the ones to clinch top honours.

Earlier, the Indians dominated the pool once again to pick five gold on the final day of the swimming competition to stamp their authority in the event. Seasoned swimmer Veerdhawal Khade clinched his first gold of the Games by winning the men's 50m butterfly event.

Other gold winners for India were Shraddha Sudhir (200m medley for women), Jyotsna Pansare (50m butterfly for women) and both the men's and women's 4x100 medley relay teams. In total, India won five gold, three silver and one bronze on the final day of the swimming event.

Khade clinched the gold in 50m butterfly for men in a Games record of 24.54 seconds. The Indian men's 4x100m medley team also set a new Games record of 3:49.78 while winning the gold. In Shillong, India clinched an overwhelming eight gold, one silver and two bronze medals on the final day of the wushu competition.