Goa bagged the gold medal in the men’s Lagori team event after Shubham Debnath clinched the gold medal in the men’s traditional Yogasana event at the Campal Sports Complex on Monday at the 37th National Games.
The Lagori event features for the first time at the National Games and the hosts performed to their potential to lift the coveted top prize, which however will not be reflected in the medals tally as Lagori is a demo event at the 37th National Games Goa 2023.
Debnath, who had represented West Bengal in the last National Games but has since moved to Goa, topped the standings with 63.67 points with Abhishek Singh (63 points) of Haryana and Mohammad Shiek (62.92 pts) of Karnataka took the silver and bronze respectively.
In the traditional category, players have to display 10 yoga poses and hold the pose for a minimum of 30 seconds.
Goa have now won 12 gold, 12 silver, 26 bronze medals and are in 11th position in the medals standing.
Earlier, two-time World Youth champion Sakshi Chaudhury led the charge for the home side as Goa were assured of four more medals from the boxing ring at the Peddem Indoor Stadium.
Five Goan boxers had already confirmed medals on Sunday, by reaching the semi-finals of their respective weight categories.
After Goa’s Zamir Roshan got a walkover from Sikkim’s RA Krishna Kalish in the men’s lightweight 51kg quarterfinal, the other three Goan boxers in action on the day won their quarterfinal bouts rather easily to advance.
Representing the coastal state, Sakshi opened the day’s proceedings with a comfortable victory over lesser-known Isha Thakur of Himachal Pradesh to progress to the women’s 50kg light flyweight semi-finals.
Sakshi dominated the proceedings right from the start with powerful punches and her trademark jabs to force a couple of standing counts on her opponent before the referee stopped the contest in the second round.
Among the men, Akash Gorkha of Goa registered a feisty 5-0 win over Andhra Pradesh’s Sandeep Doni in the light welter weight category while Rajat also recorded an identical Unanimous Decision victory over Maharashtra’s Rahil to make the 71kg light middleweight division last-four stage.
In kabaddi at Campal indoor stadium, Goan teams failed to reach the semi-finals. Goa men went down 38-56 against the mighty Haryana while hosts women lost to Punjab 44-18. In handball at Manohar Parrikar multipurpose indoor stadium at Navelim, Goa men went down to Chhattisgarh 24-30 in the group match.
