Prime Minister Narendra Modi has congratulated the State for the successful conduct of the 35th National Games.
A press note issued by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s office says that Mr. Modi had informed the Chief Minister of his happiness about the conduct of the Games through a message sent on Wednesday.
Rajinder Singh of Haryana broke the National record in men’s javelin by a metre and a half, with a massive throw of 82.23m at the University Stadium in Trivandrum on Thursday, even as meet records tumbled in both track and field on the fourth day of the athletic events.
The 25-year old Haryana thrower started off with a new meet record throw of 75.62 and then bettered Anil Kumar Singh’s National record of 80.72m set in 2008, with his second attempt.
The final day of competition on Friday will decide who will finish second to Services Sports Control Board (SSCB) as runner-up in the Games medals table. With SSCB assured of topping the table, it will be a close race between hosts Kerala and India’s sporting powerhouse Haryana.
There are some 60 gold medals still to be won in a wide range of sports disciplines, from Athletics, Badminton, Judo and Boxing to Wushu and Taekwondo, not to mention some of the most popular team games like Volleyball, Basketball and Kabaddi.
Tamil Nadu entered both the men’s and women’s finals in basketball at Mundayad in Kannur today. TN will meet Kerala in the women’s final and Uttarkhand in the men’s final on the final day Friday.
The semi finals were generally one-sided. TN beat Maharashtra 64-58 and Kerala thrashed Karnataka 69-50 in the women’s knock-out, while TN men eliminated Karnataka 80-67 and Uttarkhand ran down Services 71-57.
Kerala entered both the men’s and women’s finals in volleyball at Kozhikode today as Southern States dominated the proceedings.
Services, with half a dozen Keralites in their squad, were edged out by hosts Kerala 15-17 in the final set after enjoying a match point, much to the delight of the large turnout watching the semi-final both inside and outside the VKK Menon Indoor stadium.
Kerala will meet Tamil Nadu, who beat Rajasthan 3-0, in Friday’s final.
Anu Raghavan's gold in 400 m Hurdles for women pushed the home team to 2nd place with 32 gold and 36 silver as against Haryana's 32 gold and 29 silver in the overall medals table.
Services are far ahead on top of the heap with 79 gold.
Kerala are second in total number of medals too, with 116 medals, just 12 behind Services' 128.
Mahita Mohan won gold in 20km point race final in the elite women's category this morning to take Kerala briefly into 2nd place with its 3oth gold medal, before Haryana won its 31st and regained its position just behind Services in the medals table. Kerala’s 30 gold means it has touched its 2011 tally with 2 days remaining.
Kerala began the day on a spectacular note on Thursday bagging two gold medals in cycling and kayaking events to move past Maharashtra into third place.
The records started falling with Sapna (Rajasthan) early morning Wednesday in the 20 km walk, when she completed the 20km walk in 1:40:35.70 as against the old Games mark of 1:41:08.00.