Khelo India Youth Games 2019: Maharashtra eye three gold medals in badminton; Haryana dominate with 8 more golds

Pune: Hosts Maharashtra lined up a shot at three gold medals from the Khelo India Youth Games badminton court with impressive performances in the semi-finals on Saturday. [caption id=“attachment_5885511” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Malvika Bansod of Maharashtra in action during her semi-final match at Khelo India Youth Games. Khelo India[/caption] Nagpur’s Malvika Bansod produced a dominant performance to beat Tamil Nadu’s Nivetha Muthukumar 21-12, 21-13 and reach the girls U-21 singles final. She will meet top seed Aakarshi Kashyap of Chhatisgarh in the gold medal clash, a media release issued here said. In the boys event, it will be a clash for top honours between Maharashtra’s Aman Farogh Sanjay, the number one seed, and Rahul Bhardwaj of Karnataka. In a third success for the host state on the day, Arya Deshpande and Ananya Phadke defeated Navdha Mangalam and Sonali Singh of UP and will take on Rajasthan’s Sakshi Asrani and Anushka Mehta in the girls doubles final, it said. In the boy’s semis, Aman had to battle to get past Priyanshu Rajwat of Madhya Pradesh. The Maharashtra lad won the first set 21-13 comprehensively but was error-prone in the second to lose it 10-21. Aman recovered quickly in the decider to shut out Priyanshu 21-14 and go through to the title match against Bhardwaj, who upset third seed Dhruv Rawat of Uttarakhand 21-9, 21-10 in just 22 minutes. In the girl’s U-17 singles semis, fourth seed Mir Tasnim Ali of Gujarat came from behind to beat top seed Aditi Bhatt of Uttar Pradesh 17-21, 21-17, 21-12 and will meet second seed Mansi Singh of Uttar Pradesh in the final after the latter ousted Delhi’s Aashi Rawat 21-19, 21-19. The match of the day was in the boys U-17 semi-finals as top seed Gandham Pranav Rao from Telangana got the better of Arunachal Pradesh’s Tukum Laa 21-19, 12-21, 21-12, the release stated. Wrestling: Haryana dominate with 8 more golds Haryana once again emphasised their position as a wrestling powerhouse by emerging as the top team at the Khelo India Youth Games on Saturday. Haryana had an incredible haul of 24 golds, which was more than all the others put together. In all Haryana won 58 medals, which also included 16 silver and 18 bronze, a media release issued here said. Hosts Maharashtra clinched total 26 medals (four gold, eight silver and 14 bronze), but were placed third as Delhi bagged more gold medals (eight gold, five silver and six bronze) in their 19-medal tally. Haryana coach Vijender praised his wards for their contribution to the state. “We were missing top wrestling stars like Anshu and Sonam. Moreover, World sub-junior silver medallist Meenakshi and Asian cadet gold medallist Akash Dahiya weren’t at their best. Yet we managed to grab so many medals. It shows the depth and talent in our state,” he said. The best encounter of the day was between Uttar Pradesh’s Payal Sharma and Haryana’s Monika Hooda in the girls under-21 57kg category. Both wrestlers were evenly matched and worked very hard but eventually, Monika won 18-10. Of the 11 golds available on the final day, Haryana took eight while Delhi had just two golds and Uttar Pradesh grabbed one.