Janjivan Bureau / Patna : Aditi Satish Hegde kickstarted Maharashtra’s campaign to retain pride of place in the Khelo India Youth Games 2025 Bihar, winning the girls’ 200m Freestyle gold medal, even as Karnataka expectedly surged to the top of the charts with four of the seven gold medals on offer in the BIPARD Swimming Pool in Gaya on Monday.
The Ladakh-born and NCOE Gandhinagar-trained judo player Stanzin Deechan (63kg class) and Gargi Tokas (40kg) put Delhi on the medal table by striking gold at the Gyan Bhavan here. Rajasthan found their first two gold medals through the mixed team 10m air pistol combination of Prachi and Mayank Chaudhary in Delhi and judoka Ashwin Bharadwaj (81kg) here.
Karnataka had to wait until the third swimming final to open its gold haul. Krish Sukumar won the boys 100m Breaststroke in 1:06.39 while Manvi Verma added two gold medals to the tally with a win in the girls 100m Breaststroke event in 1:18.30 and in the 50m Butterfly final in 28.87 seconds.
Karnataka’s fourth gold came from Sri Charani Tumu who dominated her team-mate Aditi Mulay and Maharashtra’s Aditi Hegde, winning the girls 800m Freestyle time trial in a time of 9:22.29. Kerala’s S Abhinav (Boys 200m Freestyle, 1:55.32) and Assam’s Jananjoy Jyoti Hazarika (boys 50m Butterfly, 24.98 seconds) were the other gold winners in swimming.
Prachi and Mayank Choudhary held their nerves to claim the first gold medal of this edition with a 17-15 victory over Urva Chaudhary and Dev Pratap (Uttar Pradesh) in the Mixed Team 10m Air Pistol final at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Ranges in New Delhi.
Prachi, who was part of the Rajasthan team that won silver last year, was naturally delighted at finishing higher this time in Mayank Choudhary’s company. With calmness of a seasoned shooter, she hit 10.6 with her last shot when the teams were level 15-15. It was a nail-biting contest as Uttar Pradesh, including 14-year-old Dev Pratap, rallied from 2-10 to tie the scores.
Niyamicka Rana and Hardik Bansal (Delhi) beat Kanak and Partik Sheokhand (Haryana) 16-14 to claim the bronze medal. Kanak, a Khelo India Athlete from Rohtak, shot the best score during qualification. Her 288, including nine 10s, was two more than Mayank Choudhary’s score. Haryana could have done with more a bit more consistent shooting by Partik Sheokhand.
Tamil Nadu’s Smaran Sarvesh, who now trains at the SAI Centre of Excellence, Sonipat, stormed into the boys’ recurve final, stopping Uttar Pradesh Vishu’s run in the semifinal with a 6-2 win. Vishu had beaten higher-ranked Daksh Malik (Haryana) and the No. 1 ranked Kodandapani Tharuneesh Jathya (Andhra Pradesh) on his way to the last four stage.l
Smaran Sarvesh will clash with Ujjwal Bharat Olekar whose 6-2 win against second ranked Devraj Mohapatra (Meghalaya) in the semifinals ensured that Maharashtra would have at least one competitor in each of the four individual finals. Manav Ganeshrao Jadhav (Maharashtra) completed that set by setting up a compound title clash with Diwanshu Singh (Jharkhand).
The finals in both recurve and compound competitions for girls will be all-Maharashtra contests. Sharvari Somnath Shende and Vaishnavi Babarao Pawar, who secured the top two ranks took their appointed places in the recurve final while the compound title round will see top-ranked Tejal Rajendra Salve meet No. 3 Prithika.
Khelo India Youth Games are part of the Khelo India program that was launched on October 14, 2017. Khelo India aims to achieve the twin objective of mass participation and promotion of excellence in sports. The program has contributed immensely to India’s sporting success with several Khelo India athletes representing the nation at global events, including the Olympics and the Asian Games. Bihar is hosting the seventh edition of the Khelo India Youth Games from May 4-15 in five different cities of the state and Delhi. KIYG 2025 will feature 27 sports and for the first time, esports has been included as a demonstration sport.
