Manipur, Punjab share spoils in cycling
Source: The Sangai Express

Ranchi, February 21 2011: Gurpreet Kaur bagged two gold medals as international rider Ch Rameshori Devi continued her golden run with her fourth yellow metal at the Sidho Kanhu Velodrome in the 34th National Games on Monday.

Riding on Gurpreet and Rameshori's performances, Manipur and Punjab bagged two gold medals each to dominate the competition.

Having claimed a hat-trick of gold medals on Sunday, Rameshori clinched the women's 200m sprint, pipping her statemate K Suchitra Devi and stopping the clock at 13.876 .

Kerala's Kezia Verghese settled for the third spot.

Manipur clinched their second gold in cycling in men's 200m sprint through O Bikram Singh.

Asia Cup (Japan round) bronze medallist Bikram Singh clinched his second gold when he stopped the clock at 13.338 en route to the 200m sprint title.

Punjab's Amrit Singh and RL Manoj of Services bagged the second and third spots respectively.

Gurpreet earned Punjab the title in women's 4km scratch clocking 07:27.723, while Rejani V (Kerala) and T Nita Devi (Manipur) bagged the silver and bronze medal.

She bagged her second gold of the day logging 25 points en route to the title in the 16km points race as Th Helen Devi of Manipur (21) was pushed to the second spot.

Rejani V of Kerala logged 17 for the third place.

fencing: Services and Manipur bagged the two gold medals on offer in the fencing competition of the 34th National Games on Monday.

Vijay Kumar earned Services the individual gold while Tuka Ram of Andhra Pradesh bagged the silver and Gourav Gupta (Chandigarh) and Rajeshwar (Manipur) got the bronze medals.

Manipur women's team clinched the team gold in the epee event as Punjab bagged the silver, while Kerala and Chhattisgarh bagged the two bronze medals.

Boxing: Top boxers from Manipur and Services sailed into the semifinals after winning their respective bouts at JRD Tata Sports complex on Monday.

In the women's fly weight (51 kg) class, Rebecca Lalinmawaii of Mizoram was no match for Sarita Devi of Manipur, who was the best boxer of National Championship held in Kerala last December.

A former world champion and four times Asian championship gold medallist, Sarita kept on the pressure on her rival with her left-right punches to widen the margin before she clinched the bout easily 18-2 .

Vinita Mahar of Uttarakhand trounced Rijumoni Patar of Meghalaya 9-2 to move into the semifinal round in the same weight category.

Pinky Jangra (Haryana), who created a flutter by defeating five-time world champion MC Mary Kom in the quarterfinal of Senior National Boxing Championship at the same venue two years ago, maintained her form brushing aside international N Tonibala Chanu of Arunachal Pradesh 10-0 to move into the semifinals.

In the men's section, CWG bronze medallist Amandeep Singh of Punjab, internationals Sandeep of Tripura, Th Nanao Singh of Manipur and Sanjay Kolte of Services registered wins over their rivals Madan Lal (Haryana), Amit Kumar Shukla (Jharkhand), Madan Rai (Sikkim) and Madan Lal of Haryana respectively to sail into the semifinal round in the light fly weight (49 kg) category.

In the fly weight (52 kg) class for men, junior international Gaurav Bidhuri of Delhi trounced L Devendro Singh (Services) by virtue of better points while Sunil Kumar of Haryana defeated Sunil Sharma of Jharkhand to move into the semifinals.

Prakash Darjee of Arunachal Pradesh and Santosh Harijan also outclassed Debendra Thapa of Orissa and Kulwinder Singh of Punjab in the same weight category of the quarterfinal round by points.

Playing before the home crowd, Mishal Banjamin Lakra of Jharkhand delivered some powerful punches on Arun Kumar Limbu (Arunachal Pradesh) to emerge 11-5 victorious.

Archery: Archery competition opened in the 34th National Games at the JRD Tata Sports Complex on Monday with the Indian round and changes made in the qualifying and scoring system.

For the first time, Archery Association of India introduced two 50m events as qualifying rounds in place of 50m and 30m distances.

This changed the whole gamut of the sport.

The AAI also introduced set score system in the Olympic round as practised in modern archery.

The only old system remaining in the competition was the 50m distance which saw both the men's and women's records being improved.

Sunil Oraon of Services accumulated 337 out of 360 points to improve upon the previous record of 322 pts by Ajay Damal of Services set at Guwahati in 2007 .

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