National Games 2022: U20 World Champion Antim Panghal wins wrestling gold
Oct 02, 2022
Gandhinagar (Gujarat) [India], October 2 : Antim Panghal, the World under-20 champion, made an impressive debut at the National Games 2022 as she won the gold medal in women's 53kg wrestling on Sunday.
Haryana's Antim Panghal, who made history in August by becoming the first Indian to become U20 world champion in women's wrestling, beat Priyanshi Prajapati of Madhya Pradesh by fall in the final.
"I told her before going for the final bout against Madhya Pradesh's Priyanshi that she should target a win by fall. She's already in the 53kg category while Priyanshi is from the 50kg, so there's always an edge," Antim's coach Vikash Bharadwaj said after the final as quoted by the Olympics website.
Gujarat's Hina Khalifa and Swati Sanjay of Maharashtra won the bronze medals in the women's 53kg.
Meanwhile, Olympian gymnast Pranati Nayak picked up two gold medals at the Sama Indoor Sports Complex in Vadodara.
The West Bengal gymnast collected her first gold - the uneven bars - in the morning and rounded off her campaign by clinching the floor exercise crown in the evening.
"I was desperate to win gold as even though I had picked up a good haul in the last edition, I hadn't won a single gold," Pranati Nayak stated.
Olympian swimmer Sajan Prakash was beaten to the gold medal in the men's 200m freestyle by Karnataka's Aneesh S Gowda, who clocked 1:51.88 to create a new National Games record and script a fairy-tale victory at the Sardar Patel Aquatics Complex in Rajkot.
However, Sajan Prakash did win gold in the men's 100m butterfly competition.
Track and field competitors produced four National Games records in five finals at IIT Gandhinagar. Services high jumper Sarvesh Anil Kushare with a clearance of 2.27m and Uttar Pradesh's Usaid Khan who won the Decathlon with 7121 points.
Yamandeep Sharma (Rajasthan) joined Usaid as the first two men to pass 7000 points in the National Games. The Haryana men's 4x400m relay quartet and the Tamil Nadu 4x400 squad were the others who came up with new National Games records.
In men's 200m cycling, Ronaldo Singh, David Beckham and Esow Alben clinched the three podium finishes.
