Heena, Sachin delight Indiaa

Gold Coast: India's Heena Sidhu won gold in the women's 25 metre Pistol event, while para-lifter Sachin Chaudhary settled for a bronze while five boxers assured at least a medal each and both the men's and the women's hockey teams entered the semi-finals at the 21st Commonwealth Games here on Tuesday.

Heena, who finished third in the qualifier, notched up a new CWG record of 38 points, even as other shooters disappointed, with Chain Singh and Gagan Narang finished a distant fourth and seventh respectively.Heena's medal was India's eighth -- including three golds -- in the shooting discipline as she bagged her second medal here after her silver medal win in the 10m air pistol on Sunday.

The other medal was a surprise as Sachin lifted the combined effort of 181 points.In his first two attempts, he failed to lift 201 kg but he did it in the final attempt to finish in the top-three to take India's medal tally to 21 medals. India is third in the medal table -- behind Australia (130 medals) and England (74 medals).

Among other superlative performances, quarter-miler Mohammad Anas registered a national record but that was not enough to give him a podium finish in the men's 400 metres. Reigning Asian champion Anas finished the race in 45.31 seconds to improve on his own national record mark, while the bronze medallist of the event, Javon Francis delivered a season best with a timing of 45.11 seconds.

In the women's 400m semi-finals, Hima posted a personal best of 51.53 seconds to improve on her previous best of 51.97 seconds to advance to the final. Finishing third in the semi-final 1, she reached the final on the basis of having the top-two timings among the competitors who didn't finish top-two in each of the three heats.

Boxers brightened India's day with Amit Panghal, Naman Tanwar, Mohammed Hussamuddin, Manoj Kumar and Satish Kumar assuring the country at least a medal each as they reached the semi-finals of their respective weights categories.The day started with Amit Panghal defeating Aqeel Ahmed of Scotland 4:1 in a men's light flyweight (49 kg) quarter-final and Naman outplaying Samoa's Frank Masoe by a unanimous 5:0 verdict in the heavyweight (91kg) division.

Later in the day, in men's 56kg category, Hussamuddin overpowered Muilenga Everisto of Zambia in a unanimous 5:0 verdict while Manoj defeated Australia's Terry Nickolas 4:1 in the 69kg category. Satish also won his bout with a split 4:1 decision in plus 91kg quarter-final bout.

On the hockey turf, it was a field day for Indian men's and women's hockey teams as they defeated Malaysia 2-1 and South Africa 1-0 respectively to enter the semi-finals.While the men's team rode on a couple of penalty corner conversations from Harmanpreet Singh (3rd, 44th minutes) to record their second consecutive win, the women saw Rani Rampal scoring the winner in the 47th-minute. 

While the men's team is in the second spot of Pool B with seven points from three matches, the women are second in Pool A with nine points.In squash action, it was a satisfactory day for India as all the three pairs came out victorious in their respective matches. 
The mixed doubles pair of Dipika Pallikal and Saurav Ghosal registered comfortable victories against Guyana and Pakistan to advance to the Round of 16.

In their first game, Dipaka and Saurav defeated Guyana's Mary Fung-a-Fat and Jason-Ray Khalil 2-0 (11-3, 11-3) in just 13 minutes of play. Later, the Indian pair outclassed Pakistan's Madina Zafar and Tayyab Aslam 2-0 (11-2, 11-3).In the women's doubles event, Dipika and Joshna Chinappa came from behind to beat Pakistan's Zafar Faiza and Zafar Madina 2-1.In the last event of the day, India's second mixed double pairing of Joshna and Harinder Pal Sandhu defeated Caroline Laing and Jacob Kelly of Cayman Islands 2-0 (11-3, 11-6).

In the pool, swimmer Sajan Prakash finished seventh in the men's 1500 metre freestyle final after clocking 15:52.84 minutes.
A day after guiding the mixed Indian badminton team to the first-ever gold, the mixed doubles combine of Ashwini Ponnappa and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy thrashed Guernsey's Stuart Hardy and Chloe Le Tissier 21-9, 21-5 to advance to the Round of 32.

Meanwhile, India defeated Botswana 16-9 to reach the fourth round of the lawn bowls men's Fours Sectional event, while Krishna Xalxo thrashed Fiji's Arun Kumar 21-11 in Round 3 but lost 18-21 to Jamaican Andrew Newell in a Round 4 tie.