In a recently concluded Commonwealth Games, every sports critic is lauding India’s performance, as India achieved 3rd position in medal tally after Australia(1st place) and England(2nd place by winning 66 medals (26 Golds, 20 Silver & 20 Bronze). This time we have won more Gold medals as compared to last games in 2014, where we won 15- gold, 30-silver & 19 bronze(total 64) but we could not cross our tally of 2010 CWG games at New Delhi in 2010, where we won 38- Gold, 27 silver & 36- bronze (total 101 medals). We could win more medals at New Delhi because first advantage of host city and secondly Archery and Tennis were included in CWG till 2010, but were removed from CWG 2014.
There were few individual performances which were noteworthy :
- Manika Batra (Table Tennis)- Manika exceeded expectations to lead India to gold inwomen’s team championship and later in women’s singles beating higher rated players from Singapore and other nations. She used super tactics to outwit her rivals and because of her performance, India made a dent in table Tennis order at CWG. Only future will tell whether she will be able to translate her success on the world stage.
- Achanta Sharath Kamal (Table Tennis)- He is the odd one in Indian Table tennis as youngsters try to take over from elders. He was champion in CWG 2006 games. He led India to the men’s team championship, won silver in men’s double and claimed bronze in men’s singles. His three medals made him most successful male player in these games.
- Mary Kom (Boxing)- She is a world champion and Olympic medal winner, but had never won at CWG. She had a easy path to Gold medal in 45-48 Kg category, there were only 8 competitors, inexperienced as compared to her. but then she was actually competing against her self, hoping to prove that at age of 35 she still has the drive and desire to win medals. So only medal which was missing from her cabinet earlier is now with her.
- Saina Nehwal (Badminton)- Before departure to Gold Coast CWG 2018, there were question marks over her return from injury and form. That a younger player like PV Sindhu has over taken her in world rankings,(earlier at her peak Saina achieved the no.1 ranking, Sindhu presently is at no.3 ranking) further fuelled the discussions. dsaina answered her critics as she helped India win the mixed team champion ship for the first time and also bagged the gold medal in singles by defeating PV Sindhu.
- K Srikanth (Badminton)-Midway through the tournament, he became the world no.1, only the second player after Prakash Padukne to achieve this honour . But important was he won his match against former world no. 1 Lee Chong Wei in team championship. Again both of them clashed in singles finals, he had Wei ( 3 times Olympic medalist) in a spot of bother but could not close the match and had to settle for Silver medal.
- The Weightlifters- Mirabai Chanu started India’s gold rush by winning in women’s 48 Kg category.The floodgates opened as India bagged 5 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze medals, to become the most successful nation at Gold Coast in weightlifting. Sanjita Chanu, Punam Yadav, Satish Shivalingam and Ragala venkat Rahul won gold, while Deepak Lather and Gururaja also impressed with their individual performances.
- Young Shooters- They are under 20s and have caught the eye with their confident performance on the world stage. Manu Bhaker and Anish Bhanwala won gold medal in their discipline and Mehuli Ghosh won the silver. What was remarkable they came up with their best shots in high pressure situations.
Now let us come to the low moments during this CWG:
- Indian Olympic Association(IOA)- It mishandled the accreditation issue of Saina Nehwal’s father and Physiotherapist of Weightlifting team, forcing weightlifters to compete despite having injury concerns. IOA officials blamed federation for this, oit needs to be strict with all sports federation to discourage the policy of bringing freeloaders at the cost of support staff..
- Atheletes Rakesh babu and KT Irfan were suspended and sent home for breaking no needle policy, after syringes were recovered from Babu’s bag and their room. Also Dr Amol patil, the doctor with the boxing team was reprimanded for not failing to dispose off used needles as per ‘ no needle’ policy.
- Both men’s and women’s team failed to reach finals and failed to win even bronze medals as both of them lost their matches played between losing semi finalists. The men’s team had won Silver medal in last two CWG. The women’s team improved their position from fifth to fourth place, while men’s team position went down from second to fourth.
Overall the performance of Indian contingent can be considered as satisfactory only because we might have achieved success and performed better than expected in certain disciplines but our performance in athletics, hockey and few other competitive sports were below par.
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