Defending champions Manipur finish third as Karnataka top medals tally in KIBG

Diu, Jan 10
Swimming powerhouse Karnataka ended on top of the medal standings at the Khelo India Beach Games (KIBG) as Ashmita Chandra and Dhrupad Ramakrishna clinched the women's and men's 5km Open Water event gold medals respectively at Ghoghla Beach here on Saturday.
Karnataka topped the standings with three gold, all from Open Water swimming, two silver and six bronze to win the overall crown in the second edition of the event.
Tamil Nadu finished second with three gold, two silver and three bronze while last edition's winners Manipur finished third with three gold, two silver and two bronze.
Madhya Pradesh finished fourth with a tally of three gold, one silver and one bronze, thanks to their exploits in pencak silat.
With two gold, two silver and four bronze, hosts Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu finished sixth behind Haryana, who ended the Games with a tally of two gold, four silver and two bronze medals.
Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha, Nagaland and Rajasthan also finished with two gold medals each to complete the top-10 positions in the medals tally.
The second edition of KIBG witnessed over 1100 participants compete in eight sports -- volleyball, soccer, sepaktakraw, kabaddi, pencak silat, Open Water swimming, mallakhamb and tug-of-war. As many as 30 states and Union Territories took part in the event.
Manipur miss top spot
Before the start of final day's action, Manipur would have fancied their chances of retaining the overall crown as both their men's and women's beach sepaktakraw teams had a chance of bagging the gold medal in Trio.
While their women's team achieved the desired result, beating West Bengal 2-0 (15-12, 15-8), Tamil Nadu leapfrogged them to the second spot on the medal's tally by winning the men's Trio final 2-1.
Notably, Manipur men’s defeated Madhya Pradesh 15-12, 13-15, 15-13 and Nagaland 15-17, 15-11 earlier in the league round to secure the semi-final ticket.
They defeated Assam 15-11, 15-13 in the second semi-final match before going down 12-15, 15-13, 11-15 to Tamil Nadu in the final to settle for the silver medal.
The State women’s trio on the other hand defeated Maharashtra 17-14, 15-6, Andhra Pradesh 17-14, 15-8, 15-8 , and Best Bengal 3-15, 15-8, 15-8 in the league round before defeating Assam 15-10, 15-8 in the semi-final.
Manipur had earlier registered two gold and one silver in Pencak Silat and a bronze medal apiece in men and women’s Sepaktakraw team event.
The first Pencak Silat medal came in the form of a gold medal with the pair of Yengkhom Premchandra and Wahengbam Sudhir finishing atop in the Ganda event before Thokchom Roji picked the other gold medal in the women’s 50-55 kg Tanding event.
 Yengkhom Rohit meanwhile settled for the silver medal in the men’s 50-55 kg Tanding event.
Asmita top swimmer
Ashmita Chandra completed a double by adding the women's 5km Open Water swimming gold to the women's 10km title she had won on Friday. In the 5km race, Ashmita clocked 1:35:11s to clinch gold ahead of Diksha Yadav (1:35:53s) of Maharashtra. Karnataka's Aasra Sudhir won the bronze with a time of 1:39:14s.
In the men's 5km race, Karnataka's Dhrupad Ramakrishna got the better of 10km race winner Anurag Singh of Uttar Pradesh with a gap of five seconds to win the state's third gold medal.
Dhrupad clocked 1:21:33s with Prashans HM adding a bronze medal to the state’s tally with a time of 1:24:34s.         PTI (with inputs from Our Staff Reporter)