PANCHKULA: Underlining Haryana's dominance in the sport, grapplers propelled the home team back to the top of Khelo India Youth Games (KIYG) medal tally by clinching four of the five gold medals on offer, to script a happy ending to the wrestling competitions in the tournament here on Wednesday.
Barring the boys' freestyle 55kg category, in which Maharashtra's Vaibhan Patil defeated home favourite Surender for the gold, it was Haryana's day on the mat across all the remaining four final bouts of the competition, which eventually took the host's wrestling tally to 16 gold, 10 silver and 9 bronze.
The hosts collected two more gold in track and field, and another in swimming to take their overall tally to 30 gold, 23 silver and 34 bronze and go ahead of defending champions and overnight table toppers Maharashtra (26 gold, 25 silver, 22 bronze), who could only manage a gold on Day 5.
In Ambala, Karnataka swimmers dominated the pool, creating three new marks while winning four gold medals. Aneesh Gowda clinched the boys' 200m freestyle gold with a national record timing of 1:53. 17 before the trio of Hasika Ramchandra (girls 200m freestyle), S Lakshya (100m Breaststroke) and Nina Venkatesh (50m Butterfly) ended on top of the podium. That took their gold tally to 6, following their two in track and field events.
In the national capital, West Bengal's Srinjoy Datta bagged the gold medal in 10m Air Rifle beating statemate Abhinav Shaw in the gold medal match 16-14. Keval Prajapati of Gujarat clinched the bronze medal.
Earlier in the day, wrestler Sagar Jaglan started the gold rush for the home side by defeating UP's Praveen Kumar Yadav in the 80kg category.
