Telangana netball team settles for silver at 36th National Games

Hyderabad: The Telangana State men’s netball team clinched silver in the on-going 36th National Games in Gujarat on Saturday. The State team went down fighting to Haryana 73-75 in the summit clash. Telangana men took the lead with a point over Haryana in the first half 28-27. However, Haryana bounced back and clinched the title.

Earlier in the semifinals, Telangana defeated hosts Gujarat 55-53. Gujarat had plenty to cheer though, with their Netball Men’s team adding a fifth medal after the Technical Committee awarded the bronze to them as well as their opponents, Delhi, following a tie in their bronze medal play-off. Meanwhile, Riya Saboo of Telangana bagged top honours in the Quad freestyle Skating (Artistic) event.

Gujarat’s ace shooter Elavenil Valarivan gave the hosts their fourth gold while Olympic silver medallist weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, path-breaking fencer Bhavani Devi and wrestler Divya Kakaran, lived up to their top billing with yellow metals in their respective events.

The athletics arena at IIT, Gandhinagar, however, was on fire, with as many as nine Games’ records falling during the course of the action-packed day. Munita Prajapati (Uttar Pradesh), daughter of a construction labourer, and 17-year-old Parvej Khan (Services) were the stars of the day, with Munita setting the first record of this edition in the Women’s 20km walk. She clocked a commendable 1 hour 38 minutes 20 seconds.

Parvej Khan, then, did one better, breaking the highly-rated Bahadur Prasad’s 28-year-old Games record in the men’s 1500m to the delight of the fraternity. He slashed nearly two seconds off his personal best time to win the metric mile gold in 3:40.89.

2018 Asian Games decathlon champion Swapna Barman, competing in Madhya Pradesh colours here, claimed the women’s High Jump record with a clearance of 1.83m while Praveen Chithravel (Tamil Nadu) made light of a depleted Triple Jump field to win gold with a Games record effort of 16.68m. Damneet Singh (Punjab) in the men’s Hammer Throw and Kiran Baliyan (Uttar Pradesh) in women’s Shot Put also entered the record books.