Good Show by India!

The feel-good story of the Games came from the lawn bowls greens in Victoria Park. A police constable, sports teacher and a forest officer combined to catch the imagination of the entire country by winning the women's fours gold in a sport, nuances of which would still be unknown to many. The team comprised Lovely Choubey, Pinki, Rupa Rani Tirkey and Nayanmoni Saikia Inspired by them, the men's quartet too sprang a surprise by winning silver in the sport that has been part of the sports program since 1930. Navneet Singh, Chandan Kumar Singh, Sunil Bahadur and Dinesh Kumar are hoping the medal ends up changing their lives.

We had a big contingent of 215 and won 61 medals. So our performance can be said to be satisfactory. Another reason to feel happy is that many of our players did their best. They did better than their best performances at home. Avinash Sabale, who won the Silver, is a glaring example. He gave his best time till now in his steeplechase race, bettering his national mark. He is improving with every competition, and we can look forward to even better success for him in future. This grit was a rarity till some time ago, when the players fell short of their own best. That gave a feeling that their performances were not correctly measured. But that is past now, which is a good sign. Every player is trying his best to give a good performance. This temperament is necessary because only with this they can achieve a better standard. There were a few disappointments as well. The women's cricket team did well to get a silver but it had gold for the taking in the final against Australia.

It was double delight for India in badminton on the last day of the games, as ace players PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen won gold medals by winning their respective women's and men's singles finals. PV Sindhu beat Canada's Michelle Li 21-15, 21-13 in the 2022 Commonwealth Games women's singles badminton final to win her first gold medal in singles at a multi-sport event. A former world champion and two-time Olympic Medalist, Sindhu had won a silver medal at the last Commonwealth Games in singles and also won the silver medal at the Asian Games in 2018. Sindhu had also won the silver at the 2016 Rio Olympics and followed it up with a bronze in the Tokyo Olympics last year.

Young Lakshya Sen showed big match temperament as he came back from a game down to win the men's singles final against Malaysia's Tze Yong NG. 20 year old Lakshya, who was a bronze medal winner at world championship, won 19-21, 21-9, 21-16. This has been a break-out season for the youngster, which has seen him win a bronze at the World Championships and also finish as runners-up at the prestigious All England Championships. A Youth Olympic Games Silver medalist, Lakshya had played a big role in India's historic Thomas Cup victory earlier this year. The badminton men's doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy then beat England's Ben Lane and Sean Vendy to make it three gold medals from badminton.

In Table Tennis Sharath Kamal Aachinta stood out with this gold in singles, Men’s Team event and Mixed doubles. Sathian won the bronze. Manika batra was not so lucky. Table tennis got India the most number of gold medals after wrestling. Achanta Sharath Kamal showed 40 is just a number by adding three gold to a record equaling 13 medals in Games' history including the singles title after 16 years. Paralympic Games medalist Bhavina Patel contributed to India's gold rush by winning the C3-5 category.

In Athletics Eldhose Paul and Abdullah Aboobacker's rare 1-2 finish in triple jump will be cherished for long and Tejaswin Shankar's bronze in the high jump were also a first for India while Murali Sreeshankar's silver in the long jump was the country's first since 1978. Annu Rani etched her name in the history books by becoming the first Indian female athlete to secure a medal in javelin throw, a bronze. Priyanka Goswami and Sandeep Kumar brought medals in the 10,000-meter race walk, contributing immensely to the success.

PV Sindhu

Reaffirming their dominance at the CWG, Indian wrestlers won medals in all the 12 events they competed in and that included six gold. Getting gold was like a walk in the park for Olympic medalists Ravi Dahiya and Bajrang Punia while by stepping on the top of the podium, Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat made a roaring comeback after a rough patch.

Three medals also came from the judo mat including a silver from Delhi-based Tullika Maan who is already itching to change the colour of her medal. At the boxing arena, Nitu won the 48kg weight category while Amit Panghal overcame the disappointment of Tokyo Olympics to top the 51kg category.

Some interesting information:

Australia may have finished atop the Commonwealth Games medal tally after 11 days of competition but Niue and Bermuda can certainly make a claim for having the most successful campaigns when it comes to medals - both gold and overall - per head of population.

At one point England looked like hauling down Australia in the gold medal race but ultimately the team in green and gold held bragging rights.

Charli Petrov was the youngest member of the Australian Commonwealth Games team, and she won gold with Melissa Wu.

Australia finished the Games in Birmingham with 67 gold, 57 silver and 54 bronze medals for an overall haul of 178 medals. It was a slight drop from the 80 gold medals the team snared at a home Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast four years ago but was an improvement on the 49 claimed in Glasgow in 2014. England won 10 fewer gold medals than Australia but fell just two medals short of their biggest rivals overall.

Although Australian, English and Canadian athletes garnered more attention, there will be smaller teams leaving Birmingham extremely pleased with their efforts, even if they didn’t crack the top 10 on the medal tally.

Of all the 72 countries and territories that competed at these Commonwealth Games, 43 teams won a medal. Only 36 percent of countries (26 of 72) won a gold medal.

Australia, with a population of almost 26 million, won a gold medal for every 384,164 individuals and a medal for every 144,601 people. (Can we calculate for us with 140 crores population and 61 medals total?)

Of course, these numbers are only a rough estimate - based on the latest population forecasts - but they offer an insight into how well some teams have done based on their small teams and talent base.

The biggest winner of these Games, on this specific set of criteria, was Niue. A country with 1800 people, whose premier played lawn bowls in Birmingham. Niue was one of 14 teams competing who had never won a medal of any colour.

However, heavyweight boxer Duken Tutakitoa-Williams brought huge pride to the tiny island nation after his bronze medal performance.

Nauru managed one medal, while the British Virgin Islands, Guernsey and Bermuda also performed well in relation to their tiny populations compared to nations like India (1.39 billion) and Pakistan (225 million).

New Zealand, who traditionally punch above their weight, rounded out the top 10 in the population divided by medals formula with 104,530 citizens for each of their 49 medals.

On this criterion, Australia would have finished 14th. Where will India finish in this list?

On the flipside, nations with bigger populations can still get themselves towards the top half of the medal table but having so many people is always going to be a major help. Big African nations, such as Tanzania, Mozambique and Uganda, traditionally perform poorly when these metrics are used given their poor living conditions and limited resources for high-performance sport.

When it comes to the best performing nations per population, in terms of gold medals, Bermuda stands atop the podium.

Bermuda, a country of just 63,000, ranked well in the same category after last years’ Tokyo Olympics by winning one gold medal. Bermuda’s Flora Duffy defended her women’s triathlon title in what was her country’s only gold. How valuable it was. Then there are the countries that struggle to make inroads at the Commonwealth Games. While there were some large countries who won medals but couldn’t convert any into gold - such as Tanzania, Mozambique, Ghana and Sri Lanka - others will walk away from Birmingham empty-handed.

Bangladesh, who won two silvers on the Gold Coast four years ago, failed to get in the top three in any event.

All in all for India the games ended satisfactorily. Next will be Ashian Games, which are postponed to next year.

Well done India!

- A.S. Ketkar
aashriketkar@gmail.com
(The writer is a renowned sports journalist who previously worked with Maharashtra Times.)

Indian Gold Medal Winners :
Achinta Sheuli: Sport – Weightlifting; Event – Men’s 73kg
Jeremy Lalrinnunga Sport – Weightlifting, Event – Men’s 67kg.
Mirabai Chanu: – Weightlifting, Event – Women’s 49kg
Rupa Rani Tirkey, Lovely Choubey, Nayanmoni Saikia, Pinki Singh: Lawn Bowls Event – Women’s fours
Bajrang PuniaSport – Wrestling Event – Men’s freestyle 65 kg
Sakshi Malik : Sport – Wrestling, Event – Women’s freestyle 62 kg
Deepak Punia :Sport – Wrestling, Event – Men’s freestyle 86kg
Ravi Kumar Dahiya: Sport – Wrestling, Event – Men’s freestyle 57kg
Vinesh Phogat Sport – Wrestling, Event – Women’s freestyle 53kg
Naveen Malik: Sport – Wrestling, Event – Men freestyle’s 74kg.
Nikhat Zareen : Sport – Boxing, Event – Women’s 50kg
Amit Panghal : Sport – Boxing, Event – Men’s 51kg.
Nitu Ghanghas: Sport – Boxing Event – Women’s 48kg.
PV Sindhu: Sport – Badminton, Event – Women’s Singles
Lakshya Sen : Sport – Badminton, Event – Men’s Singles
Chirag Shetty/Satwirksairaj Rankireddy Sport – Badminton, Event – Men’s Doubles
Achanta Sharath Kamal: Sport- Table Tennis: Event – Men’s Singles
Sharath Kamal/Sreeja Akula:Sport – Table Tennis. Event – Mixed Doubles
Harmeet Desai, Sanil Shetty, Sharath Kamal, G Sathiyan: Sport – Table Tennis Event – Men’s Team
Eldhose Paul: Sport – Athletics, Event – Triple Jump.
Bhavina Patel: Sport – Table Tennis, Event – Women’s singles C3-5.
Sudhir : Sport – Para powerlifting, Event – Men’s heavyweight