Glasgow : Indian judokas produced the country’s best-ever performance by bagging three medals on the opening day of competitions in the 20th Commonwealth Games on Friday.
Shushila Likmabam (women’s 48kg) and Navjot Chana (men’s 60kg) clinched a silver each while Kalpana Thoudam (women’s 52kg) bagged a bronze to begin India’s campaign on an impressive note. Manjeet Nandal, however, lost his bronze medal match in men’s 66kg.
The fifth Indian judoka in the fray, Shivani, in women’s 57kg, lost out in early rounds.
With their efforts, Indian judokas created history by winning the highest number of medals in any Commonwealth Games.
Judo made a return in the CWG fold after the 2002 Manchester Games. This is the third time judo has been included in the Games, the first being in 1990 in Auckland. India had won two medals in both 1990 and 2002.
Indian men’s team coach Rameshwar Dutt Mudgal said that he was hoping for more medals. “We are going to win some medals. We are hoping to win six to seven medals in total,” he said.
Chana (60), a 2010 Commonwealth Championships gold medallist, lost to Ashley McKenzie of England in the final.
The Indian lost on the basis of penalty points (shido). Chana was handed three penalty points as against one by the Englishman.
Both earned the same number of wazari points.
Earlier in the day, the Punjab judoka had faced a tough challenge from top-ranked Australian judoka Tom Pappas in the first round before winning it on the basis of more yukos at the end of the five-minute bout though both of them got one penalty point each.
Navjot then knocked (Ippon) out B Dodge of Wales in the quarterfinals and went on to thrash D Le Grange of South Africa in another Ippon (knock-out) result in the second minute of the semifinal bout.
Shushila showed tremendous form en route to the final round by knocking out her rivals on Ippon (knock-out) verdicts.
She, however, was no match to Scotland’s Kimberly Renicks in the final. The judoka, egged on by home fans, knocked down the Indian in the third minute of the final round bout with an Ippon (knock-out) verdict.
The Manipuri judoka began her campaign by thrashing M Medza Effa of Cameroon in just one minute 41 seconds before knocking out A Meyer of Australia in similar fashion in the quarterfinals.
She then made it to the final after another thrashing of her semifinal opponent C Rayner, also of Australia, in an Ippon verdict in the third minute.
The men’s bouts are of five minutes while the women fight for four minutes.
An Ippon (knock-out) or two wazari will result in an immediate end of the bout.
Kalpana, a gold medallist in 2010 Commonwealth Games and World Cup bronze, was tipped to at least make it to the finals but failed to go past her semifinals opponent L Renicks of Scotland. She, however, won her bronze medal match against Christianne Legentil of Mauritius who lost in the quarterfinals but won her repechage round bout.
Nandal (66) beat J Saywell of Malta in a knock-out verdict before another similar result against Asa Weithers of Barbados.
The Indian lost to C Oates of England in the quarterfinals. He, however, won his repechage round bout before losing to Siyabulela Mabulu of South Africa in the bronze medal bout.
—PTI
