Silver the order of the day

Bajrang, Kadian, Lalita and Sakshi end runners-up in wrestling competition

After Tuesday’s stunning gold rush, Indian wrestlers suffered heart-break on Wednesday, settling for four silver medals and a bronze at the 20th Commonwealth Games here.

Bijneesh Bajrang, Satyawart Kadian, Lalita and Sakshi Malik had stormed into the finals of their respective events, raising the prospect of another glorious evening but they all encountered tough opponents in their gold medal bouts to sign off second best at the SECC Hall.

Lalita took the mat first against Odunayo Adekuoroye in the women’s 53kg freestyle final, but her hopes were crushed by the Nigerian in quick time. Odunayo completely dominated Lalita and took just 31 seconds to seal the gold medal. The Nigerian managed to pin down the Indian and raced away with the win. The bronze medals went to South Africa Mpho Madi and Canada’s Jill Gallays.

Bajrang’s performance in the final mirrored Lalita’s, his freestyle 61kg final bout lasting a mere 84 seconds against Canada’s David Tremblay. The Canadian, who was in his elements from the very start, was simply too good for the Indian, registering a 12-1 tally to be declared winner on account of technical superiority.

The bronze went to Nigeria’s Amas Daniel and Scotland’s Viorel Etko.

Sakshi also had to settle for silver after she lost her women’s freestyle 58 kg final to Nigeria’s Aminat Adeniyi. In another lop-sided verdict, Aminat raced to a 10-0 lead in two minutes 24 seconds when the match had to be stopped on grounds of technical superiority.

The bronze medals went to New Zealand’s Tayla Ford and Canada’s Braxton Rei Stone.

India’s hopes then rested totally on Kadian who started strongly in his 97kg bout against Canada’s Arjun Gill. He had a narrow 2-0 lead after the first period and seemed headed for victory, leading 4-2 midway through the second period. But Gill fought back courageously to level the proceedings 4-4 with just seconds left on the clock before being adjudged winner on technical points.

Bajrang had earlier defeated Sasha Madyarchyk of England inside the three-minute mark in his opening bout before overpowering South Africa’s Marno Plaatjies 4-1 in the quarterfinal.

Kadian started his campaign on a resounding note and took less than two minutes to overpower Uduwila Manjula of Sri Lanka to storm into the quarterfinals. The referee stopped the bout in 1:45.00 of the first period after Kadian led by 10 points.

Kadian then defeated Soso Tamarau of Nigeria 3-1 to advance to the semifinals, where he got the better of Englishman Leon Rattigan 3-1 to seal his place in the title clash. 

In the women’s competition, Lalita hardly had to break sweat to enter the 53kg final as she overpowered home favourite Shannon Hawke 5-0. Lalita entered the semifinals after an identical 4-0 win over South African Mpho Madi in a lop-sided quarterfinal contest. 

Sakshi, however, had to fight hard before winning her semifinal bout against Braxton Rei Stone of Canada 8-5 on technical points.