Lovely Choubey and Rupa Tirkey, lawn bowls star players from Jharkhand, were also part of Team India’s Lawn Bowls side that won the women’s fours event gold medal at the Commonwealth Games 2022. They stole the limelight at the National Games to propel their state team to a gold medal finish at the National Games 2025 in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
Jharkhand women’s team defeated West Bengal by 18-8 in the women’s fours final event on the fifth day of the competition. Reshma Kumari and Kavita Kumari were the other two players in the winning Jharkhand side.
West Bengal women’s four teams, which won the silver medal, were represented by Manisha Srivastava, Renu Mohta, Reema Paw, and Kinjal Shah.
Notably, in August 2022, the Indian women’s Lawn Bowls team, comprising Lovely Choubey, Pinki, Nayanmoni Saika, and Rupa Tirkey, made history by securing India’s first medal (gold) at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
In the grand finale, they defeated the South African women’s four-team 17-10. Importantly, Lovely was a constable with the Jharkhand police at the time, while Rupa, who hails from Ranchi, worked in the sports department.
Jharkhand won two more gold medals in Lawn Bowls
Interestingly, Jharkhand won two more gold medals in Lawn Bowls at the ongoing 38th National Games. Jharkhand’s men’s pair Dinesh Kumar and Sunil Bahadur defeated Assam’s Biswajeet Khound and Biman Nath by 25-4 in the final to add second gold in the sport for their state.
The third gold for the state came when Basanti Kumari secured a win over Assam’s Suranjana Baruah by 21-20 in the thrilling women’s U25 final.
In the men’s U25 final, Uttarakhand’s Utkrisht Dwivedi defeated Assam’s Bitu Das by 21-20 to bag the gold medal. Delhi bagged gold in the men’s triple event, defeating Jharkhand by 25-8 in the final.
Moving to the women’s singles, West Bengal’s Beena Shah defeated Jharkhand’s Sarita Tirkey 21-8 in the final to bag the gold medal.