Suraj Panwar wins silver in men's 5000m race walk, boxing challenge ends at Youth Olympic Games
Buenos Aires, Oct 16: Suraj Panwar clinched a silver in men's 5000m race walk event to open India's medal account in athletics at the Youth Olympic Games but country's boxing challenge ended with quarter final defeat of Jyoti Gulia, here.
Panwar won the stage 2 competition by clocking 20 minutes and 35.87 seconds on Monday night but finished second overall.
In a new format, there are no finals in track and field (with the exception of 4km cross-country) in the Youth Olympics and each event is held twice, with results from both rounds counting towards the final standings.
The 17-year-old Panwar had finished second in the first stage in 20.23.30s, behind Patin Oscar of Ecuador.
Oscar, who finished second in Stage 2, won the gold with timings of 20:13.69s and 20:38.17s.
Panwar's total time of 40:59.17s was over seven minutes slower than Oscar's 40:51.86s. Puerto Rico's Jan Moreau finished third to claim the bronze.
This is India's first athletics medal in this edition and third overall. Arjun (men's discus throw) and Durgesh Kumar (men's 400m hurdles) had won a silver each in the inaugural edition in 2010.
"It's a great feeling. I am very happy to have won a medal. I had put in a lot of hard work for the Games. It is my first medal for India," Panwar said after winning the silver medal.
"My next target is to better my performance here and win a medal in the senior level also," he added.
India's boxing challenge though ended at the very first hurdle after former world champion Jyoti (51kg) lost her quarterfinal bout to Italy's Martina La Piana.
Gulia was the lone Indian boxer to qualify for the Games owing to her world title and lost in a unanimous 0-5 verdict to the Italian on Monday night.
The 17-year-old Indian from Haryana was expected to do well at the event given that she was coming off a gold medal winning performance at the Silesian Open in Gliwice, Poland last month.
India's maiden and only set of medals in the Youth Olympics' boxing competition came in the inaugural edition of 2010.
Shiva Thapa and Vikas Krishan delivered a silver and a bronze medal respectively, which remain India's best performance. While Shiva won his silver in the 54kg category, Vikas finished with a bronze in the 60kg division.
In 2014, the best that India managed in boxing was Gaurav Solanki's fourth-place finish. Solanki (52kg) won the gold medal in this year's Commonwealth Games.
Meanwhile, archer Himani was eliminated from the women's individual recurve event after losing her 1/8 match 4-6 to American Catalina Noriega.
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Confident we are going to win Kerala: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed confidence in the victory of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, saying the Congress-led alliance will win more than 75 seats out of the total 140 in the state.
Tharoor, who hails from Kerala, said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls, most of which predicted a victory for the UDF that has been out of power for 10 years in the state.
"We have been on the ground. I have campaigned in 59 constituencies across 12 districts out of 14. I was very confident we are going to win.
"Everything that I have picked up from not just my party colleagues and workers but also from other observers, media and others have always convinced me that we were going to score a comfortable win of above 75 seats. And all the (exit) polls have confirmed the same thing," he told reporters here.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls but in general he was not a big fan of exit polls in India.
"Because ours is not purely a homogenous society. We have to take into account gender issue, caste issue, class issue, regional disparities. You never get a convincingly large enough sample to give an accurate poll and now there is the additional complication that we have heard about in West Bengal this year that many people are unwilling to answer the questions of the pollsters," he said.
The Congress leader said normally, it used to be below 10 per cent that people said that they would not answer.
"Even if you are a reputable exit pollster, in Bengal, one polling company has said 60 per cent of people refused to answer. So, what is the worth of a poll where 60 per cent of your respondents have not answered," he said.
Several exit polls on Wednesday predicted a comeback by the Congress-led UDF in Kerala after 10 years, dethroning the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly was held on April 9. Results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, besides Kerala, will be announced on May 4.
