Ranchi, Feb 22: Services were set to improve their medal count of the earlier edition as they consolidated their top position on the 10th day of competition in the 34th National Games here today.
Services, who topped the medal tally in the last edition of the Games four years, added four more gold today to take their tally to 49 gold, 36 silver and 27 bronze.
They have won 13 gold medals more than second-placed Manipur with just four days remaining in the competition.
Services had won 59 gold, 46 silver and 37 bronze medals in Guwahati National Games in 2007.
With spectacular performances in water events, fencing and archery, Manipur toppled Maharashtra from the second spot with 36-23-23. Maharashtra failed to add any gold medal today to slip to third position with 34-38-37.
The weightlifting competition provided keen competitions with Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Sandhya Rani Devi being pushed to third spot.
Roped in by Jharkhand to add to their yellow medal count, Sandhya Rani turned out to be a big cropper as she managed a disappointing 151kg (65 snatch + 86 clean and jerk) to slip to third spot in the women's 48kg.
Soniya Chanu of Uttar Pradesh, who won silver in the Commonwealth Games, emerged victorious with a lift of 157kg (68ᄥ) as Kh Sanjita Chanu of Manipur finished a close second with 154kg (67ᄣ).
Another Commonwealth Games bronze medallist V Srinivasa Rao failed to improve his Games record of 135kg in jerk but his total lift of 226kg (100꡶) was enough to earn him gold.
Maharashtra's Mayur Sinhasane lifted 225kg (103ꡲ) for the silver while M Tamil Selvan of Tamil Nadu had an effort of 205kg (95ꡦ) for the bronze.
Manipur's H Shaya Devi clinched the women's 53kg gold with 170kg (75ᄫ) as Assam's P Liainu Chanu, who lifted a total of 168kg (73ᄫ), settled for a silver. Orissa's Minati Sethi finished third with 161kg (71ᄦ).
Meanwhile, Punjab men and Tamil Nadu women won the gold medals in basketball.
Punjab men outclassed Uttarakhand 97-57 while Tamil Nadu women defeated Chhattisgarh by 79-48 to finish at the top of the podium.
In the matches for the bronze medals, Services men defeated Tamil Nadu 81-68 while Delhi women beat Maharashtra 79-59.
Samashakhi Devi Laishram of Manipur and Vijay Kumar of Services picked their second gold each on the penultimate day of fencing competition at the Mega Sports Complex here.
Having picked a team gold yesterday, the epee fencer dished out a fine attacking performance to easily win over her statemate M Sandhyarani Devi 15-4 as Assam's Th Kabita Devi and Sapna Dutta of Punjab settled for the bronze medals.
It was also a memorable day for the Services fencers who clinched the foil team event after beating Manipur 36-30.
The quartet of Vijay Kumar, Kripal Singh, Deepak Kumar and Basant Kumar beat Manipur's Th Rajeshor Singh, O Savaraj Singh, A Chitaranjan Meitei and Th Rajive Singh.
Having picked the individual gold yesterday, it was also a second yellow metal for Vijay Kumar.
Tamil Nadu (C Selvakumar, M Sabarinath, Thinakara Anand and Vinothkumar) and Chandigarh (Pankaj Singla, Mukesh Kumar, Ripudaman Singh and Gaurav Gupta) settled for bronze medals.
In water events, promising 20-year-old Chingching Arambam of Manipur and Services' Jemsboy Oinam added one gold each to their kitty to make it two each on the penultimate day of canoeing and kayaking competitions at Maithon Dam in Dhanbad.
Having clinched the 1000m men's singles kayaking, Arambam won the 500m singles kayaking for his second yellow metal.
Digvijay Negi (Services) and 18-year old Madhya Pradesh youngster Ramkrishna bagged the second and third positions.
In the 500m men's singles canoeing, Ankit of Madhya Pradesh finished on top but he was disqualified and Oinam was declared winner for his second gold as Services ruled canoeing and kayaking medal tally with five gold and three silver.
Bhakta Singh (Andhra Pradesh) and Adil Mohiudin Bhat of Jammu and Kashmir won the silver and bronze medals.
Bhanu Bordoloi of Assam was disqualified in the 500m women's singles kayaking as Kiro Ragina of Andaman Nicobar was adjudged winner, while Nanao Devi A of Manipur and Silpamol of Kerala won the silver and bronze each.
The duo of Minimol and Simimol won the 500m women's doubles kayaking while Andaman pair of Sandhya Kispotta and Ragina Kiro settled for silver as the union territory followed Services in the second spot of canoeing and kayaking medals tally with a haul of 3-1-0.
Shusila Devi Konjengbam and Bony Devi Laishram of Manipur bagged the bronze medals.
In tennis, Ratnika Batra ousted third seed Prerna Bhambri to set up a women's singles final clash against top seed Zainab Ali Sajjad.
The men's singles final tomorrow will be a battle between two top ranked players Karan Rastogi and Mithun Murali.
In a battle between the two Delhi girls, 11th seed Ratnika caused a flutter of sorts when she upset the higher ranked Prerna 7-5 2-6 6-3.
The other half saw Andhra girl Zainab smoothly sailing into the final with a 6-3, 6-1 thrashing of Maharashtra's fourth seed Nupur Kaul.
Men's singles top seed Rastogi of Maharashtra faced a strong challenge from seventh seed Shokeen before wrapping up the match 6-3 3-6 6-3.
Second seed Mithun Murali of Tamil Nadu came back from a first set deficit to get the better of Ashutosh Singh of Delhi 3-6 7-5 6-4.
In archery, Manipur clinched women's individual and team gold medals to dominate the Indian round of archery competition in Jamshedpur.
Services won the men's team championship while Assam clinched the individual men's title.
K Prabhahini Devi earned Manipur the first gold when she finished ahead of local girl Jayalaxmi Laguri and statemate Th Ishembi Devi.
Manipur quartet of Prabhahini, Ishembi Devi, M Sanjita Devi and S Nirmala Devi won the women's title, while Assam's Kamini Boro, Pallabi Boro, Anima Basumatary and Anjali Brahma won the silver. Jharkhand's Tulsi Hembrom, Sukhmati Purty, Lakhi Mandal and Layalaxmi finished third.
In the men's team event, Services' A Suraj Singh, Sunil Oraon, P G Mandal and Vikram Singh won the gold followed by Tripura and Manipur.
Kansai Borgayary of Assam clinched the individual gold followed by Suraj Singh of Services and N Subhas Chandra of Manipur.
Maharashtra lined themselves up for a double in kho-kho after making the finals in both men's and women's sections.
The men's team thrashed Andhra Pradesh 11-4 to set up a summit clash against Karnataka tomorrow. Karnataka pipped Kerala 16-15.
Maharashtra women had a narrow escape against Bengal when they won 9-8 to enter the final where they will face Kerala who ousted Delhi 11-4. PTI
