Birmingham: India vaulted into fourth place in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games medals tally after Nikhat Zareen struck gold in the women’s 48-50 kg light flyweight event on Sunday.
World champion Nikhat added the CWG gold by outpunching Northern Ireland’s Carly McNaul in the final bout to hand India their third boxing gold of the day – following the success of Nitu Ghanghas and Amit Panghal.
India’s tally is currently 17 gold, 12 silver and 19 bronze for a total of 48 medals. They displaced New Zealand, who have 45 medals (17 gold, 12 silver, 16 bronze).
Indians Make Three Badminton Finals
India, who had a dream day in athletics too, with a 1-2 finish in triple jump, are in line for several more medals on the last two days of competition.
In badminton, PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen worked their way into the gold-medal round of women’s and men’s singles events, respectively.
Sindhu overcame Singapore’s Yeo Jia Min 21-19, 21-17 in a 49-minute contest to reach her second successive CWG final.
In the men’s semis, seemed to have lost his way midway but recovered in the nick of time to beat Jia Heng Teh of Singapore 21-10, 18-21, 21-16.
It could have been an all-Indian final, had Kidambi Srikanth not squandered a winning position to go down 21-13, 19-21, 10-21 to lower-ranked Malaysian Tze Yong Ng in the second singles semifinal.
The Indian men’s doubles pair of Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also advanced to the title match after outplaying Malaysia’s Chen Peng Soon and Tian Kian Men 21-6, 21-15.
