Ranchi: Swimmers Virdhawal Khade and Richa Mishra were adjudged Best male and female athletes while Services Sports Control Board (SSCB), who topped the charts
with 162 medals including 70 gold, were given the Raja Bhalendra Trophy for Champions team in the 34th National Games that concluded here on Saturday.
A special award of Best State was also given to Manipur who finished second with a haul of 48 gold, 37 silver and 33 bronze medals.
Coming back from a doping controversy ahead of last year’s Commonwealth Games, Richa Mishra showed tremendous resilience as she competed in all the 17 individual swimming competitions, winning 11 of them while finishing second in
four and third in one.
Richa came very close to break Nisha Millet’s feat of 11 gold medals in Manipur Games (1999) but in the end she had to be content with an equal number of titles.
Her 11 gold medals effort catapulted Delhi to a sixth place finish with 32 gold, 26 silver and 41 bronze medals.
Poster boy of Indian swimming, Virdhawal Khade, was not behind as he grabbed eight gold medals, all of them with Games record timings as he hauled 16 medals, including two silver and two bronze that helped Maharashtra’s cause immensely.
Maharashtra finished with 41 gold, 44 silver and 47 bronze medals at the fourth place.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, February 26, 2011, 23:24