India is currently ranked fifth in the standings with 13 Gold, 20 Silver and 14 Bronze medals
Wrestlers and shooters are in the spotlight these Commonwealth Games, with their contributions providing a significant proportion of India’s medal tally.
A highlight of Day 8 was Vikas Shive Gowda’s 63.64m discus throw, bringing India to its 13th gold medal.
Good news from the hockey field as India beat South Africa 5-2, storming into the semi-finals.
Indian table tennis men’s doubles pair Achanta Sharath Kamal and Anthony Amalraj are also in the semi-finals after beating England in the quarterfinals, while India’s squash stars Dipika Pallikal and Joshana Chinappa reached the women’s doubles semi-finals.
India’s Dipa Karmakar made history in Gymnastics winning a bronze and becoming only the second ever India to clinch an historic Commonwealth Games medal in artistic gymnastics.
In wrestling, Pawan Kumar fought Pakistan’s Muhammad Inam for bronze. Pawan took the medal in a stunning turnaround after trailing for most of the match. Yogeshwar Dutt came out to wrestle and took Gold in the 65kg category.
In the women’s events, Geetika Jhakar faced Danielle Lappage of Canada and took silver, while Babita Kumari defeated Brittanee Laverdure, also of Canada, 9-2 to bag the fourth Gold medal for India in wrestling.
Meanwhile, the youngest member of the Australian wrestling team, Jayden Lawrence (74kg), came closest to winning a medal. The 19-year-old reached the bronze medal contest against Nigerian Melvin Bibo after losing to two-time Olympic medalist Sushil Kumar in a previous fight.
According to AAP, world champion Kumar sought out Lawrence for a special one-on-one warm-up session, which demonstrated an uncommon act of respect towards someone so young and of a different nationality.
“To have somebody of that stature take Jayden under his wing and see that he has potential, that was a feel-good story for sure,” Australian wrestling coach Alan Landy told AAP.
Landy added that Australia should speed up the naturalisation of talented wrestler immigrants in order to be more successful and competitive on the world stage.
