Commonwealth youth games (Oct12-18, 2008)

[Sandeep]

Commonwealth youth games for 2008 will be held in Pune. It might prove to be a good place to find young talents of India. Over 1300 athletes from 71 countries will be participating in these games. The official website is http://cygpune2008.com/

Sports categories included in these games are Athletics, Badminton, Boxing, Shooting, Swimming, Table tennis, Tennis, weightlifting and wrestling. Go India

[Sandeep]

Rahi Sarnobat and Ankush won golds for India in the yesterday's shooting event. Two very contrasting golds as Rahi had to put up a brilliant performance to win the gold while Ankush was the only person on the podium with the only other competitor failing to qualify!!! Rahi shot 748.10 to win the gold in the 25m pistol event. She was tied with Binti after the qualifying rounds at 550, though she was a completely different player in the final rounds coming up with a spectacular scores of 48.90, 50.70, 49.70 and 48.80.

And for Ankush's performance, I don't even now why did they go ahead with the event. There were only two competitors in the fray, Ankush and Murray Middleton. Ankush shot 509 while Murray didn't even qualify with a disappointing 236. He would have got a silver even if he qualified. I feel sorry for Ankush, he could have probably won gold even with a tougher competition. I hope his victory will not be discounted because of a depleted field (is there something lower than depleted to describe this field )

Diksha Gaikwad also won the gold in 48kg weightlifting while Shiv Shankhar Singh won silver in 56kg event.

You know, we can also top the table, India is leading at the commonwealth youth games

Other results

Table tennis:

Men’s singles: Soumyajit Ghosh (Ind) bt Randula Sahanaka Ganegodage (SL) 11-3, 6-11, 11-1, 11-6.

Women’s singles: Neha Agarwal (Ind) bt Barbara Pepa 11-3, 11-2, 11-3; Soumi Mondal (Ind) bt Amina Namaganda (Uga) 11-3, 6-11, 11-1, 11-6.

Badminton:

Men’s singles: R.M.V. Guru Sai Dutt (Ind) bt Jacob Maliekal (RSA) 21-10, 21-17.

Women’s singles: Sikki Reddy (Ind) bt Kune Foo (MRI) 21-4, 21-15;

Tennis:

Women's singles: Kyra Shroff (Ind) bt Zwakele Zwane (Swz) 6-0, 6-0; Venkatesha Poojashree (Ind) bt Kim Carruthers (Sam) 6-0, 6-0.

Boxing (pre-quarterfinals):

48kg: T. Nanao Singh (Ind) bt Kumara Weerapurage (SL) RSC, second round.

64 kg: Shanthosh Virothu (Ind) bt Alexander Akeem (Guy) RSC, third round. 69 kg: Balwinder Beniwal (Ind) w/o Ricky Lee Murphy (NZ).

[arjun2761]

Some pretty good times swum by Virdhawal Khade in winning 1 gold and 2 silvers in his first 3 events at the CYG. At this rate of improvement, he should be a medal prospect at the CG in 2010.

A very good show by our double trap shooter also who shot 180/200 in winning gold and looks like a world class prospect for the future. India is dominating the medal count which is good to see although the competition in wrestling, track and field, weightlifting, etc. is probably less than world class.

[Sandeep]

Saina, Sikki Reddy and Guru Sai Dutt are into the semifinals of the Badminton event. For Saina, she can never compete in an easier gold medal tournament

Khade though won three medals for us, I was a bit disappointed with his performance in 200m freestyle. He was getting tired towards the end and probably that is something he might want to work on.

[sameerph]

Khade though won three medals for us, I was a bit disappointed with his performance in 200m freestyle. He was getting tired towards the end and probably that is something he might want to work on.

Sandeep, Khade broke the national record in 200m freestyle by clocking under 1.50 sec for the first time. He mentioned that the Australian who had beaten him was better in endurance & he hopes to do better in shorter distances.

[arjun2761]

Yes, Virdhawal's best events are probably going to be 100m and then 50m rather than the 200m. However, what is noteworthy that he is maintaining a pretty good pace of improvement. In the 200m freestyle, he seems to be nearly 2 secs faster than a year ago. At this rate, if he is in the 1:47+ range in the 2010 CG games, he could be in contention for a medal there (and CG games swimming standards are pretty high).

[jaydeep]

Yes, Veer won the 100m freestyle final beating Ryan Napolean of Australia with whom he lost on Wednesday's 200m freestyle final ... Veer completed race in 49.47 sec with new games record ... Who was more than a second ahead of Ryan Napoleon was finished second in 50.66 sec.

But in the 100m butterfly, Veer came 2nd behind Australian Lachlan Staples with 54.01 sec.

[arjun2761]

Congratulations to India for putting up a very impressive performance in the CYG Pune. With the usual caveats (for possible age issues and quality of competition etc.), it was a huge improvement from what we have done in previous CYGs.

In the last CYG, we won 2 gold while we won 12 golds this time in Track & Field, Swimming, and Boxing which I think were common sports between last time and this time. It will be very interesting to see how we do in these sports in the 2010 CG since we have not won many medals in the CGs in these sports in the past. Shooting is another sport where we did well but that is a sport in which we have now been dominating at the CG and doing well at the world level as well. Wrestling got us 7 golds but I think the competition at the commonwealth level is very far from world class.