National Games: Olympian fencer Bhavani Devi continues domination, hosts Goa win their first gold medal

Panaji (Goa)[India], October 27 (ANI): Olympian C. A. Bhavani Devi of Tamil Nadu continued her domination in the women's Sabre Individual Fencing event while hosts Goa opened their account with three medals from Modern Pentathlon in the 37th National Games on Thursday.
Bhavani Devi, who was the biggest star to be in action on the day the Games were officially declared open by the Prime Minister, defeated Kerala's S Soumiya 15-5 in the final to win back-to-back National Games gold medals. Shiksha Ballouria of Himachal Pradesh and Jagmeet Kaur of Punjab won the bronze medals.
Earlier in the day, Babu Gaonkar gave the host their first gold medal of the games after winning the Men's Laser Run event in Modern Pentathlon at Ponda. Ajay and Ravi of Haryana finished with silver and bronze. Later in the day, Babu teamed up with Seeta Gosavi to win the silver in the Laser-Run mixed relay where Anju and Ravi of Haryana won the gold and Yoginee Salunke and Shahaji Sargar of Maharashtra won the bronze.
In the Women's Laser Run, Ujjala of Haryana clinched the gold ahead of Yoginee Umakant Salunke of Maharashtra who won the silver and Neha Yadav of Madhya Pradesh took home the bronze.
In the Men's Laser Run Team Haryana won gold followed by Madhya Pradesh with the silver and Maharashtra with the bronze. In the Women's Team event, Madhya Pradesh won gold while Maharashtra returned with silver followed by Goa who won bronze.
At the Campal Sports Village, Popy Hazarika of Assam clinched the gold in the Women's 59 Kg weightlifting category with a total lift of 191 Kg (Snatch - 86 Kg, C&J-105 Kg). Davinder Kaur of Punjab won the silver with a total lift of 182 Kg and M. Deepanayomi of Andhra Pradesh lifted 180 Kg to win the bronze.
In the Men's 67 Kg category, Mizoram's Lalhunthara lifted a total of 281 Kg to clinch the gold, edging out Subhash Lahre of SSCB by just a kilogram. Arunachal Pradesh's Bengia Tani won bronze with a total lift of 277 Kg.
In the Women's 64 Kg, Ditimoni Sonowal of Assam clinched the gold with a total lift of 200 Kg with S. Nirupama Devi of Manipur (195 kg) taking home the silver Jasveer Kaur of Punjab (186 kg) bagging the bronze.
N. Ajith of Tamil Nadu won the gold medal in 73 Kg Men's category with a total lift of 290 Kg. Ranjeet Chavan of Maharashtra bagged the silver medal with a lift of 281 Kg and J. Koteswara Rao of Andhra Pradesh won the bronze.
In Gymnastics at the Peddem Multipurpose Indoor Stadium, Yogeshwar Singh of Haryana clinched gold with Sidharth Verma of Uttar Pradesh and Gaurav Kumar of SSCB winning silver and bronze respectively in All Round Individual Men's event in Gymnastics.
Later in the day, Maharashtra added five more gold medals to their tally in gymnastics winning the Women's and Men's Pair, Mixed Pair and Women's Group in Acrobatic Gymnastics and women's individual all round in rhythmic gymnastics. SSCB won the other gold in Men's group.
Pranati Nayak, who is now representing Odisha, won the gold in the women's All-Round Individual which was held late yesterday. Pranati Das of West Bengal won the silver while Shraddha Talekar of Maharashtra won bronze.
In Rugby, Odisha beat Karnataka and Bihar beat Delhi in the quarterfinals of the Women's event played at the Athletics Stadium, Bambolim. Odisha blanked Karnataka 64-0 while Bihar reached the semis beating Delhi 53-0. In the third quarterfinal, West Bengal beat Kerala 27-7 to secure a place in the semis.
In the men's category, Haryana beat Punjab 31-10, Odisha beat Bihar 19-14, Maharashtra beat Goa 22-0 and West Bengal beat Kerala 24-12 to book their places in the semi-finals.
At Manohar Parikkar Indoor Stadium, Navelim Telangana will face Madhya Pradesh while Delhi will face Chattisgarh in the semi-finals of Women's Basketball 3x3. In the men's category, Madhya Pradesh will take on Rajasthan while Delhi will be against Punjab for a place in the finals. (ANI)