National Games: Nataraj, Desinghu End With 9 Gold Medals Each, Karnataka Cements Top Spot

Star swimmers Srihari Nataraj and Dhinidhi Desinghu ended their National Games campaigns with a whopping nine gold each as their state Karnataka's overwhelming dominance at the pool reflected in its top placing on a day when there was not much movement in the medal tally. (More Sports News)

Karnataka clinched four more gold on the concluding day of swimming competitions in Haldwani on Tuesday to run away with a whopping 22 yellow metals in total from the pool.

The southern state cemented its position at the top with 28 gold, 12 silver, 13 bronze for a total haul of 53 medals, followed by Services with 40 (21 gold, 10 silver, 9 bronze).

Maharashtra (16 gold, 33 silver, 27 bronze), Tamil Nadu (11 gold, 16 silver, 16 bronze) and Manipur (11 gold, 10 silver, 5 bronze) rounded off the top five.

Hosts Uttarakhand bagged a gold in canoeing (women's Slalom C1 event) through Rina Sen to lie at the 15th spot.

There was no medal event at the shooting range in Dehradun on Tuesday.

Desinghu, the 14-year-old swimming sensation, won the women's 100m freestyle event with a Games record time of 57.34 seconds -- bettering her own earlier mark of 57.87 seconds set in the 2023 Goa edition -- while Nataraj took the men's 100m freestyle title with a time of 50.65 seconds.

Desinghu and Nataraj, both Paris Olympians, later teamed up to help Karnataka win the mixed 4x100m medley gold with a time of 4 minutes and 3.91 seconds to end at the same number of gold medals.

Desinghu, however, pipped her senior state-mate in the total number of medals won. She won 11 medals in the Games, having earlier won seven gold (400m freestyle, mixed 4x100m freestyle, 200m freestyle, 100m butterfly, 4x100m freestyle relay and 50m freestyle and 4x200m freestyle relay), one silver (50m butterfly) and one bronze -- (4x100m relay medley).

The 24-year-old Nataraj ended the campaign with 10 medals, having earlier won seven gold -- 50m backstroke, mixed 4x100m freestyle, 200m freestyle, 4x100m freestyle relay, 4x100m freestyle relay medley, 4x200m freestyle relay and 100m backstroke -- and a silver -- 50m freestyle.

Nataraj and Desinghu are tipped to become the best male and female athletes of the Games. Nataraj had won the accolade in the 2023 edition of the Games in Goa with 8 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze to his kitty.

At the badminton courts in Dehradun, Tamil Nadu's Satish Kumar Karunakaran claimed the men's singles as well as doubles title while rising shuttler Anmol Kharb of Haryana continued her impressive run to win gold in women's singles.

The 18-year-old Kharb, a member of the gold medal-winning Indian team at the Asia Team Championships, outclassed top seed and world number 43 Anupama 21-16, 22-20 in the final.

In the men's singles final, top seed Karunakaran beat Suryaksh Rawat of Uttarakhand 21-17 21-17 in a dominating performance to win gold on the final day of badminton competitions.

Karunakaran had earlier in the day teamed up with Aadya Variyath to eke out a hard-fought 21-11, 20-22, 21-8 win over Deep Rambhiya and Akshaya Warang of Maharashtra in the mixed doubles gold medal match.

In Shivalik Velodrome in Rudrapur, footballer-turned cyclist David Beckham Elkatohchoongo of Anadaman and Nicobar, whose last name saved him from denying entry in the United Kingdom for the 2022 Commonwealth Games, won gold in the men's elite sprint.

The 21-year-old Elkatohchoongo clocked a time of 10.691 seconds in two laps to win the gold while Laitonjam Ronaldo Singh (10.724 seconds) of Manipur and another Andaman and Nicobar Islands cyclist Esow Alben (10.826 seconds) took the silver and bronze respectively.

It was a tough fight among the three best cyclists of the country competing at the brand new Shivalik Velodrome here, with Elkatohchoongo emerging on top ultimately.

When Elkatohchoongo landed in the UK for the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games, the British immigration officers were stumped when he told them his name. They asked him if David Beckham was his real name.

After double checking of his passport, he was allowed entry by the immigration officers.

Elkatohchoongo's name was given by his father who was a 'street footballer' and a fan of charismatic English football great and former captain David Beckham. His first love was also football but later shifted to cycling which is quite popular in Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

His and 22-year-old Ronaldo's presence in the Indian cycling team for the Hangzhou Asian Games created a lot of buzz in the foreign media because of their names.

Ronaldo was given his name by his father as he was born during the 2002 World Cup which Brazil won with Ronaldinho playing a big role in the triumph.

Ronaldo is a sprint silver medallist at the 2022 Asian Championships.

In basketball 3x3 event, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana were crowned the men's and women's champions after beating Kerala in the finals of both the sections.

Services won gold in the men's waterpolo while Kerala took the women's crown.

In archery competitions, the finalists across all individual events have been decided. In women's recurve individual event, star archer Deepika Kumari beat Gatha Anandrao Khadake in tie-breakers to make her way to the final. Anshika Kumari will join her in the final after pulling off an upset win over Komalika Bari.