Indian athletes had quite a successful outing at this year’s Commonwealth Games in Australia’s Gold Coast, putting up their third-best show after the Delhi games in 2010 and Manchester games in 2002, bagging a total 66 medals.
India finished the 2018 Commonwealth Games third with 26 gold medals, 20 silver ones and 20 bronze medals. Let’s look at how much each sport contributed:
Badminton - 6 Medals (2 Gold, 3 Silver, 1 Bronze)
India’s complete dominance in the badminton events reflected in the six medals with which Pullela Gopichand’s wards will be returning home from Gold Coast with.
The campaign started with Saina Nehwal sealing the win in the mixed team final against three-time defending champions Malaysia, as India bagged their first-ever mixed team gold at the CWG.
The other gold came with Saina Nehwal once again on the podium after her aggression and intensity quite literally wilted PV sindhu as she picked up the women's singles gold medal. Newly-crowned World No.1 Kidambi Srikanth let slip the early advantage to settle for a silver medal in the 21st Commonwealth Games, going down to Malaysian legend Lee Chong Wei in the men's singles summit clash.
Saina won the gold medal in women’s singles, and mixed team events, PV Sindhu picked up a silver medal in women’s singles, Kidambi Srikanth won the silver in men’s singles, Chirag Chandrashekhar Shetty and Satwik Ranikreddy also won a silver in men’s doubles. N Sikki Reddy and Ashwini Ponnappa, however, had to settle for a bronze medal.
Boxing - 9 Medals (3 Gold, 3 Silver, 3 Bronze)
Led by MC Mary Kom, India’s boxing contingent in Gold Coast finished with the country’s highest-ever medal haul in the sport, picking a total of 9 medals.
Mary, a five-time world champion, defeated Kristina O’Hara of Northern Ireland by a unanimous 5:0 verdict to take the title in her debut Commonwealth Games appearance.
Mary (48kg), Vikas Krishan (75kg), Gaurav Solanki (52kg) were the three boxers who bagged gold medals even as Satish Kumar (91kg), Amit Panghal (49kg) and Manish Kaushik (60kg) settled for silvers. Mohammed Husammuddin (56kg), Naman Tanwar (91kg) and Manoj Kumar (69kg) all won bronze medals after losing their semifinal bouts.
Athletics - 3 Medals (1 Gold, 1 Silver, 1 Bronze)
Indian athletes secured three medals in athletics with one bronze, one silver and one gold each, with Neeraj Chopra becoming the first Indian javelin thrower to claim a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games, pulling off a season's best effort of 86.47m in the final at Gold Coast on 14 April.
Neeraj became only the second javelin thrower to claim a CWG medal – the first being Kashinath Naik, who fetched a bronze in the 2010 Delhi Games.
The other two medals, a silver and a bronze came from Discus throw. Silver medallist Seema Punia came up with a best effort of 60.41m to win her fourth successive CWG medal while Dhillon clinched her maiden medal with her final throw of 57.43m.
Table Tennis – 8 Medals (3 Gold, 2 Silver and 3 Bronze)
22-year-old Manika Batra was the big revelation of these Commonwealth Games, finishing on the podium in each of the events she entered in Gold Coast.
The Delhi girl finished the Games with a total of four medals even as India’s 10-member table tennis team bagged 8 (3 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze) medals, finishing with their best-ever medal haul in CWG history.
Apart from Manika Batra’s gold medal in women’s singles, Indians won the gold in both the men’s and the women’s team events, Sharath Achanta and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran won silver in men’s doubles, Manika Batra and Mouma Das won silver in women’s doubles, Sarath Achanta got bronze in men’s singles, Manika Batra and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran won bronze in mixed doubles while Harmeet Desai and Sanil Shankar Shetty won bronze in men’s doubles.
Shooting - 16 Medals (7 Golds, 4 Silver, 5 Bronze)
Being one of the sports where you expect a number of medals from India, shooting did not disappoint this year as well by giving India the most number of gold medals among all sports.
The highlight among Indian shooters were the youngsters.
Anish Bhanwala, a boy aged 15, trumped the men standing in his way to become India's youngest-ever gold medallist at the Commonwealth Games, India's teen shooting sensation Manu Bhaker grabbed the women's 10m air pistol gold medal and 17-year-old Mehuli Ghosh won a silver in women’s 10m air rifle event.
Indian shooting ace Jitu Rai also claimed the gold medal in men's 10m air pistol event by creating a new games record while Heena Sidhu picked up a gold medal 25m pistol shooting and a silver in 10m air rifle event.
Apart from these, Sanjeev Rajput won a gold medal in men’s 50m rifle shooting; Tejaswini Sawant won gold in women’s 50m rifle event as well as a silver 50m rifle prone event; Shreyasi Singh won gold in double trap shooting; Anjum Moudgil won silver in women’s 50m rifle event; Om Mithraval won bronze in men’s 10m air pistol as well as 50m pistol shooting; Ravi Kumar won bronze in 10m air rifle; Ankur Mittal won bronze in Men’s double trap shooting and Apuvi Chandel got the bronze in women’s 10m air rifle event.
Squash – 2 Silver Medals
Joshna Chinappa and Dipika Pallikal failed to defend their doubles title as they lost the final to New Zealand’s Joelle King and Amanda-Landers Murphy losing 9-11, 8-11.
Dipika also ended up winning the silver in the mixed doubles event where she was partnering her brother-in-law and India number one Saurav Ghosal. The pair lost the final 8-11 10-11 to local favourites Donna Urquhart and Cameron Pilley.
Weightlifting - 9 Medals (5 Golds, 2 Silvers, 2 Bronze)
India’s first medal at this year’s games as well as the first gold medal, both came from weightlifting.
Weightlifter P Gururaja opened India's medal account in the Commonwealth Games on the first competition day, claiming a silver in the men's 56kg category.
The 25-year-old Gururaja, making his CWG debut, equalled his personal best of 249kg (111+138) to finish second.
World champion weightlifter Saikhom Mirabai Chanu (48 kg) went on a record-smashing spree, claiming three of them in a power-packed performance, to secure India's first gold medal at the 21st Commonwealth Games.
In a remarkable performance, Chanu smashed the Commonwealth and the Games record in snatch, pulling off clean lifts in all her three attempts (80kg, 84kg and 86kg).
Weightlifter Sanjita Chanu claimed her second successive Commonwealth Games gold medal, in a higher 53kg category, smashing the Games record in snatch in the process.
The Indian lifted a total of 192kg (84kg+108kg) to claim the gold medal.
Teenager Deepak Lather became the youngest Indian weightlifter to claim a Commonwealth Games medal, clinching a bronze in the men's 69kg category.
Sathish Kumar Sivalingam extended India's gold medal-hunting run in the weightlifting competition. Sathish registered a total of 317 kg which included 144 kg in snatch and 173 kg in clean and jerk.
Venkat Rahul Ragala became the fourth Indian weightlifter to claim a gold medal at the ongoing Commonwealth Games, coming out trumps in a tense contest.
The gold rush continued in weightlifting for India as Punam Yadav added another gold to the tally with a top finish in the 69kg category.
Vikas Thakur added a shade of bronze to Indian weightlifters' golden run at the Commonwealth Games, claiming the third position in the 94kg category by equalling his personal best.
Indian weightlifter Pradeep Singh also won a silver medal in Men’s 105kg category.
Wrestling - 12 Medals (5 Golds, 3 Silver, 4 Bronze)
Indian wrestlers did the nation proud as Sumit Malik won the men’s 125 kilogram freestyle title while Vinesh Phogat took women's 50 kg gold on the last day of wrestling events in Gold Coast.
India got another medal when Somveer bagged bronze by defeating in Alexander Moore of Canada 7-3 in the play-off in the men's 86kg division.
Double-Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar (74kg) and event debutant Rahul Aware (57kg) provided the golden touch as India snared an impressive four medals on the opening day of the 21st Commonwealth Games' wrestling competitions.
Olympic bronze-medallist Sakshi Malik (62kg) also had to be content with a third place finish in the Commonwealth Games.
Wrestler Bajrang Punia won the gold medal men's freestyle 65kg category at Commonwealth Games.
Mausam Khatri (97kg) and Pooja Dhanda (57kg) picked up silver medals while Divya Kakran (68kg) notched a bronze on her CWG debut.
However, another defending champion Babita Phogat (53kg) settled for a silver, while debutant Kiran happily flaunted a hard-earned bronze.
Kiran defeated Mauritian Katouskia Pariadhaven by fall in the repechage of the 76kg category for her first major medal at the international level.
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