India wins two gold; Russia tops Military World Games

Hyderabad, Oct 20 (UNI) India ended the Military World Games with 10 medals, including two gold, with Narjit Singh bagging the yellow metal in 54kg boxing event while men's volleyball team added a bronze on the final day here today.

With only triathlon left in the Games - which will be held in Mumbai tomorrow - Russia topped the medal tally with 38 gold, 26 silver and 27 bronze for a total of 91 medals, while China were a close second, bagging 36 gold, 21 silver and 11 bronze for a total medal haul of 68.

Germany, Italy, Ukraine, Kenya and Uzbekistan followed far behind the two leaders with five gold each.

China's Zhou Yafei and Russian Evgeny Lagunov won four gold each, all from the pool, to share the tag of athlete with highest number of gold medals though Qatar's Al Suwaidi Kheled and Jena Frederick Nguimbous of Cameroon bagged five medal with identical haul of one gold, two silver and two bronze each.

India are at 19th position in the medal tally with a total of 10 medals (2 gold, 1 silver, 7 bronze) which is much better than their performance in the last Games in 2003 in Catania (Italy) where they had won only one bronze.

But, the star of the Games was Chinese swimmer Yang Li who broke women's 50m back stroke world record yesterday by clocking 28.09s, eclipsing American Leila Vaziri's record of 28.16s set at Melbourne in March this year. Yang's record though is subject to confirmation by FINA, world governing body for swimming.

In 54 kg boxing final, Narjit was trailing 5-6 after the end of third round but made a remarkable fight back in the last round to beat Schneider Marcel of Germany 12-8 in a dramatic final bout.

The Manipuri lad began on a shaky note and seemed struggling to score points against the German in the first two rounds. Down 1-2 and 3-5 after the first and second rounds, Narjit began the fight back in the third and narrowed the gap to 5-6 at the end of it.

Even as the capacity crowd started feeling restless, Narjit held on to his nerves and sent a flurry of punches in the final round, which landed on the right areas of his opponent to walk away 12-8 winner.

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