Venkat Rahul Ragala lifts a gold for India in Asian Youth Games

PUNE: India's medal tally at the Asian Youth Games in Nanjing, China, continued to grow with Venkat Rahul Ragala lifting a gold in boys 77kg class and Shainki Nagar shooting the air pistol silver on Wednesday. Sixteen-year-old Rahul lifted 142 kg in snatch and 168 in clean and jerk to climb the top of the podium ahead of local favourite Xingyu Lu (128+157 kg) and Thailand's Pichet Maneesri (123+157 kg).
At the Fangshan shooting hall, Nagar shot 565 to qualify for the finals in the sixth position and then had a 195.3 in the climax. Home contender Jiayu Wu won the gold after qualifying with a top score of 573 before shooting an equally impressive 195.5 in the final. The other Indian in the field, Samarjit Singh finished fifth after firing 561 and 134.
In the men's trap competition, Akash Saharan (103) missed the finals in a shoot-off with Iran's Behzad Iranmanesh, who eventually finished fifth, while Abhay Singh Rathore (101) was placed ninth.
India, entered in the Games as Independent Olympic Athletes (AOI), are now ranked ninth with a tally of eight medals (two gold, two silver and four bronze). China (72), Korea (30) and Thailand (26) top the standings in that order currently. India were assured of another medal when Garvit Batra reached the boys' singles semifinals in the tennis competition.
Batra overwhelmed Kazakhstan's Roman Khassanov 6-1, 6-1 to set up a clash in the last-four against second seed Jurence Zosimo Mendoza of Philippines. But there was disappointment in the women's section as Rutuja Bhosale, who had upset top seed Ching-Wen Hsu of Chinese Taipei on Tuesday, bit the dust against fifth seed Yan Wang of China 1-6, 1-6 in the quarterfinals.