India rules the roost
The Hindu
Wins 11 of 12 golds on offer at South Asian junior and cadet TT
India made a clean sweep of all but one title in the South Asian junior & cadet table tennis championships which concluded in Male on Thursday.
India didn’t participate in the junior boys’ team event as it had already qualified for the Asian junior championships. Bangladesh won the event in India’s absence.
Indian paddlers won 11 titles out of the 12 at stake with P.B. Abhinandh winning four which included the singles wins in junior and cadet categories.
Suhana Saini (junior girls) and Jennifer Varghese (cadet girls) won a treble each.
The results (finals):
Boys: Juniors: Singles: P.B. Abhinandh bt R. Balamurugan 11-4, 11-5, 11-7. Doubles: Ankur Bhattacharjee & Patil Deepit Rajesh bt K.C. Dulsen & T.D. Wijesinghe (SL) 11-8, 11-4, 11-9.
Cadet: Team:India bt Pakistan 3-0 [Abhinandh bt Muhammed Ahmed 7-11, 11-6, 11-7, 11-5; P. Balamurugan bt Abbas Amjad 11-4, 11-4, 11-8; Priyanu Bhattacharya & Abhinandh bt Muhammed Ahmed & Abaas Amjad 11-5, 11-7, 11-8].
Asian Games champion Avinash Sable opened his season in the 3000m steeple chase with a silver in the Portland Track Festival, a World Athletics Continental Tour bronze event, in Oregon on Saturday. He clocked 8:21.85s. Asian champion Parul Chaudhary took the bronze in the women’s 3000m steeple chase in a season-best 9:31.38s. Former Asian bronze medallist Sanjivani Jadhav struck gold in the women’s 10,000m in 32:22.77s, a time which was a second off her personal best, while Seema was sixth in 32:55.91s.