MAHARASHTRA OLYMPIC GAMES

The 12-day competition saw 10,000 athletes fighting for gold and glory in close to 40 sports in eight cities of Maharashtra. Sports Champ brings you some of the interesting stories of athletes

Pune crowned champions

Hosts Pune was crowned champions on a concluding day after bagging five gold medals each in swimming and cycling. The sporting powerhouse received the Champions Trophy from Divisional Commissioner Saurav Rao during the colourful closing ceremony, drawing the curtains down on the 12-day competition that had seen over 10,000 athletes fighting for gold and glory in close to 40 sports in 8 cities of Maharashtra.

Overall, Pune took 116 gold, 96 silver, and 105 bronze medals for a total of 317. Thane took home the runners-up trophy, grabbing 47 gold, 34 silver and 37 bronze. Kolhapur finished third. The Best Male Athlete was Rishabh Das of Thane, who fished out 5 gold from the swimming pool. The Best Female Athlete was Pune’s Shraddha Talekar, who also took 5 gold in gymnastics.

On the last day of the Games, 25 gold medals were on offer in boxing and over a dozen in wushu. Though Pune wasn’t expected to dominate the medals tally in these two events, the contingent would have aimed to pocket a few yellow metals to maintain their top standing and then bank of the swimming pool.

Pune, Thane and Mumbai had been the dominant teams in the swimming pool over the last few days and things were no different on Thursday. Pune clinched five of the six gold medals in the women’s category, with Sadhavi Dhuri bagging an individual double (50m butterfly and 100m freestyle) before joining forces with her other teammates to clinch the 4x200m and 4x50m freestyle gold medals.

In the diving events, Solapur’s Esha Waghmode upset National Games gold medallist Medhali Redkar of Mumbai to clinch the women’s 1m Springboard gold medal.

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