Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Gold Coast, April 9
Sunday brought good tidings for the Indian contingent, from some very special women in the squad — 16-year-old Manu Bhaker brought in the promised gold in the women’s 10m air pistol, Punam Yadav lifted the 69kg weightlifting gold and the table tennis girls shocked Singapore to win team gold.
There was more: Vikas Thakur got the 94kg weightlifting bronze, adding to the silver he’d won four years ago in the 85kg category. Heena Sidhu rose sensationally in the final of the 10m pistol event, getting silver after flirting with elimination. Following the event of Manu and Heena, Ravi Kumar stepped up in the 10m range to shoot down the air rifle bronze.
After the fourth day of competition, India lay at the fourth spot with seven gold, two silver and three bronze.
Boxing legend MC Mary Kom made it to the semifinals of her event to assure herself of at least a bronze; the mixed badminton team and the men’s table tennis teams also made sure they’d come back with at least silver medals after they reached their finals.
After the table tennis victory, the most unexpected success for India was in women’s hockey, in which the Indian girls shocked world champions England 2-1 to rise to the top of Pool A. The men’s team would be less happy, for the scoreline of the win over Wales was wholly unsatisfactory 4-3.
The day’s best for India was at the shooting range, in Brisbane: Manu and Heena did a 1-2 in the 10m air pistol event. Manu then went back to the Games Village and became untraceable: she prefers to keep her phone switched off, and had gone off to play table tennis — one of her 20-odd pastimes — with players from Sri Lanka and Jamaica. “I don’t know what the excitement is about,” she said. “I’ve won a medal, but no need to become so excited!”
The paddlers couldn’t hide their excitement though, considering how Manika inspired India to a historic gold with her stunning singles victories. The world No. 58 scored the biggest win of her career by humbling world number four and multiple Olympic medallist Feng Tianwei 3-2 and then brushed aside 100th-ranked Yihan Zhou 3-0.
