KIUG: With Three More Golds, Pune University Top of The Table

With three more golds, Savitribai Phule Pune University tightened their grip on the top place in the medals tally at the inaugural Khelo India University Games 2020 through Mahesh Datta Asawale and Prajkta Ravindra Khalkar and in wrestling through Jyotiba Bajrang Atkale.

With gold eluding Panjab University (Chandigarh) and Jain University (Bengaluru), they have remained on 8 each. Pune University, though, has 13 gold medals to surge ahead. Guru Nanak Dev University (Amritsar) and University of Mumbai complete the top five on the charts.

Mahesh Asawale, who won the All-India Inter-University Championships in Mohali last December with total lifts of 258kg, showed improvement here. He lifted 123kg in Snatch and 143 in Clean & Jerk for a total of 266kg. Having returned to the sport in September after a year-long suspension after a dope rule violation, he celebrated in some style.

In the absence of Simranjeet Singh (Chandigarh University) and Hanuman Sagar (Gulbarga University), neither of whom was entered in the competition, Juturi Koteswara Rao (Krishna University) and Mithlesh Sonkar (Hemchand Yadav University) claimed the other podium spots with total lifts of 243kg and 238kg respectively.

Manoja Kumar Sahu (Berhampur University), a silver medal winner in the boys Under-21 73kg class in the Khelo India Youth Games in Guwahati last month, also improved on his own mark. He had a total of 267kg here, compared to 264kg there, to claim the gold ahead of Manish Kumar (Panjab University) and Lovepreet Singh (Punjabi University).

Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education, Gwalior, opened their account with a gold medal from their 90kg class judoka, Kuldeep Singh. Similarly, Gujarat University also made it to the list of universities with gold when Samir Pathan emerged winner in the men’s 81kg class. They joined 30 other Universities with at least one gold medal.

With India women’s rugby captain Vahbiz Bharucha donning the mantle of the on-field medic, host university Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology’s men and women’s teams, backed by a goodly crowd, sailed into the semi-finals with facile victories over Panjab University 19-5 and Kavayitri Bahinabai Chaudhari University, Jalgaon, 55-0.

Shivaji University and Chandigarh University men, as well as Pataliputra University and Lovely Professional University’s women, showed they can put up a good show with decent wins in their respective quarterfinals.

(With IANS inputs)