Commonwealth Games 2018 Day 8, India results and roundup: Sushil Kumar, Rahul Aware clinch gold medals as Indian wrestlers dominate
India's rich haul of medals continued on Day 8 with two gold medals, a silver medal and one bronze from the wrestling arena in addition to a silver medal, courtesy Tejaswini Sawant's spectacular performance in the 50m rifle prone event that added to the overnight tally.
Ahead of the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, a lot of hopes were pinned around the wrestling contingent and the wrestlers did not disappoint with Rahul Aware and Sushil Kumar clinching the gold medal in the 57kg and 74kg freestyle events respectively while Babita Kumari and Kiran clinched the silver and bronze medal in the 53kg freestyle and 74kg events respectively.
Rahul Aware, making his debut in the Games overcame a stiff challenge from Canada's Steven Takahashi to win by superiority in points while Sushil Kumar, who came into the competition at the back of gold medals in 2010 (66kg) and 2014 (74kg) completed a hat-trick of gold medals after he thrashed South African wrestler Johannes Botha 10-0.
However, the spotlight belonged to shuttler Kidambi Srikanth, who with his Round of 16 victory over Sri Lankan Niluka Karunaratne grabbed the headlines when it was announced that he was now the world's numero uno ranked player in the men's singles category.
Babita Kumari, Kiran excel in women's wrestling
Babita Kumari, one of India's most successful female wrestlers continued her purple patch at the Commonwealth Games as she clinched the silver medal in the 53kg freestyle event. Having beaten Australia's Carrissa Holland in the semi-finals, Babita fell short to Canada's Diana Weicker in the finals.
In the 74kg bronze medal encounter, India's Kiran dominated the clash and won by fall over Mauritius' Katouskia Pariadhaven.
Indomitable day for Indian Badminton
The day panned out to be a very fruitful one for the Indian badminton contingent as the likes of HS Prannoy, Kidambi Srikanth and PV Sindhu registered comfortable victories in the singles category to move on to the quarter-finals stages.
In the Round of 16 in the mixed doubles category, the duo of Satwik Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa registered an easy 21-10, 21-7 victory in just under 25 minutes over the Canadian duo of Kristen Tsai and Nyl Yakura while the combination of Pranaav Chopra and N. Sikki Reddy moved on to the quarters with a 21-19, 21-13 victory over Singapore's Chrisnanta and Wong.
Ritvika Gadde booked her place in the quarter-finals of the women's singles category with a 21-10, 23-21, 21-10 win over Singapore's Jia Min Yeo while senior compatriot PV Sindhu registered a 21-15, 21-9 victory against Australia's Hsuan-Yu Wendy Chen.
HS Prannoy convincing 21-18, 21-11 win over Australia's Anthony Joe and Kidambi Srikanth's 21-10, 21-10 dominance over Sri Lanka's Niluka Karunaratne saw both the shuttlers progressing while the duo of Vikram Malhotra/Ramit Tandon and Sikki.N.Reddy/Ashwini Ponnappa moved to the quarterfinals of the men's doubles and women's doubles to cap off a fabulous day for the Indian shuttlers.
Shooting
India's sole medal from the shooting events was courtesy Tejaswini Sawant's silver medal finish in the 50m rifle prone finals with a score of 618.9, falling agonisingly short of the leader Martina Lindsay Veloso by just 2.2 points.
Neeraj Kumar topped the standings for in the Men's 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Qualification after finishing with a total score of 291 while Anish stood third with a score of 286 at the completion of Stage 1.
Lawn Bowls
The Indian contingent finished the day with mixed results as the Men's fours comprehensively beat Norfolk Island 25-7 in Round 5 but fell short to Wales in the semi-finals.
In the women's pairs quarterfinals, the Indian duo of Choubey Lovely and Rupa Rani Tirkey lost 11-17 to Malaysia's Emma Firyana Saroji and Siti Zalina Ahmad.
Table Tennis
In the women's doubles category, Suthirtha Mukherjee/Pooja Sahasrabudhe continued their dominance while Manika Batra/Mouma Das overcame a one-game deficit to win 12-14, 11-3, 11-7, 11-6 and move to the semifinals.
The experienced duo of Achanta Sharath/Mouma Das booked a spot in the quarterfinals of the mixed doubles in addition to which the teams comprising of Gnanasekaran Sathiyan/Manika Batra and Sanil Shankar Setty/Madhurika Patkar also qualified.
Manika Batra continued her rich vein of form with a commanding 11-5, 11-6, 11-2, 6-11, 11-9 over Singapore's Yihan Zhou in the quarterfinals of the Women's Singles category to camouflage Mouma Das's loss to Singapore's Mengyu Yu.
In the Men's singles Round of 16, Achanta Sharath dominated with an 11-8, 12-10, 8-11, 11-6, 11-5 win over Australia's Heming Hu while Harmeet Desai booked a spot in the quarterfinals with an 11-5, 11-7, 11-5, 7-11, 11-4 win over Malaysia's Chee Feng Leong. Sathiyan Gnanasekaran had it easy against Nigeria's Segun Toriola, who retired after the 11-7 first game loss.
Gnanasekaran Sathiyan/Manika Batra and Sanil Shankar Shetty/Mahurika Patkar qualified for the quarterfinals of the mixed doubles event while two quarterfinals spots in the men's doubles category were bagged by Achanta Sharath/ Gnanasekaran Sathiyan and Harmeet Desai/Sanil Shankar Shetty.
Squash
In the men's doubles category, Vikram Malhotra/Ramit Tandon won 2-0 against Jamaica to set up a quarterfinal clash with England.
In the mixed doubles category, Dipika Pallikal Karthik and Saurav Ghoshal won 11-8, 11-10 to progress into the semifinals stage while the duo of Joshna Chinappa/Harinder Pal Sandhu could not recreate their magic as they fell 10-11, 10-11 to New Zealand's Joelle King/Paul Coll in the quarter-finals.
Athletics
Seema Punia, with an impressive throw of 60.41 clinched the silver medal in the discus throw event while Navjeet Dhillon bagged the bronze medal with a 57.43 throw.
Purnima Hembram, who represented India in the Women's heptathlon finished second in heat 1 of the women's heptathlon 100m hurdles with a time of 13.56s to go with her personal best of 1.72m in the high jump event and an 11.75 attempt at shot put. In the 200m heats, Hembram finished third with a timing of 25.12s.
In the men's triple jump event, Arpinder Singh topped Group B with an effort of 16.39m to join A.V Rakesh Babu in the finals line-up.
The women's long jump final bore witness to the participation of Nellickal.V.Neena and Nayana James, who finished 10th and 12th respectively.
Hockey
As part of the women's hockey semi-finals, the Indian team fell short of the Australian team's score by just a solitary goal as Australia won 1-0 at the back of a field goal from Grace Stewart.