Saloni, Kushi strike gold for Karnataka; Delhi's Nisar fastest

Maharashtra turned in a fine all-around performance in athletics, wrestling and swimming with two gold each to edge ahead of Haryana and Karnataka in a tight race for medals honours at the inaugural Khelo India School Games (KISG).

All three teams have nine gold each, but Maharashtra had a total of 25 medals as compared to 23 for Haryana and 20 for Karnataka.

After dominating the first day at the pool, Karnataka won just two of the nine golds on offer on Friday. The only other state to win two golds was Maharashtra. Delhi, Manipur, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh swimmers won one each.

Fancied Saloni Dalal and Khushi Dinesh picked the gold for Karnataka.

Khushi claimed her second gold medal in the 200m freestyle event ahead of Delhi's Annie Jain and Aaryan Bhosle. In the women's 100m breaststroke event, Saloni clinched the second gold medal by finishing comfortably ahead of Aaliyah Singh of Uttar Pradesh and Sharon Shaju of Maharashtra.

In the grueling 400m individual medley, Delhi's Firdoush Kayamkhani dug deep into her reserves to set the pool ablaze with a defining performance when she claimed her second gold.

Maharashtra had a good day in most of the medal events on Friday, while Haryana had a great day in athletics and wrestling.

Uttarakhand's Anu Kumar and Haryana's Pooja became double gold medallists in athletics while Nisar Ahmad of Delhi emerged as the fastest boy of the meet, despite running an all-out 100m twice in a span of 20 minutes.

Delhi sprinter Nisar Ahmad, who had to postpone his training trip to Jamaica in order to compete at this meet, was so focused that he did not hear the recall whistle following a false start and he went all out in 10.77 seconds. The race was pushed to 20 minutes later to allow the athletes time to recover.

When the final was re-scheduled, Karan Hegiste of Karnataka, expected to provide Nisar a tough contest, was disqualified because of another false start. The race finally got underway and Nisar sprinted away to glory in 10.76 seconds with another Karnataka athlete VA Shashikanth second in 10.90 and Haryana's Govind Kumar third in 10.95.

Another impressive winner was Odisha's Punga Soren, who ran a brilliant heat of 14.24 in the morning only to better it in the afternoon by claiming the 110m hurdles gold with 14.12 seconds.

The shooting finals also began with Zeena Khitta (DAV Senior Secondary School, Chandigarh) winning the 10m air rifle for girls, while Shahu Mane (St Xavier's High School, Kolhapur) won the 10m air rifle boys event.