South Asian Games 2019 Medal Tally: India go atop the medal standings with strong Day 4 performances

Day 4 of the 13th edition of the South Asian Games saw the contingent of Indian athletes rack up medals as they leapfrogged the host nation Nepal.

The South Asian Games Medal tally now has India atop the standings with a total of 70 medals - 34 Gold medals, 23 Silver medals, and 13 Bronze medals. On the day, Indian athletes added a great haul of 19 gold medals to pip Nepal at the top of the medals tally.

To add to the Men's team and Women's team gold medals, Indian table tennis players were triumphant in Men's Doubles, Women's Doubles and Mixed Doubles as they grabbed both the gold and silver medals.

Harmeet Desai and Anthony Amalraj defeated countrymen Sanil Shetty and Sudhanshu Grover with a score of 8-11 11-7 11-7 11-5 8-11 12-10 to win the Men's Doubles gold medal. In the Women's Doubles final, the pairing of Sreeja Akula and Madhurika Patkar got better of Suthirtha Mukherjee and Ayhika Mukherjee with a scoreline of 2-11 11-8 11-8 11-6 5-11 11-5 to clinch the gold medal.

In the Mixed Doubles event final, Harmeet Desai paired with Sutirtha Mukherjee to beat fellow Indian pair of Anthony Amalraj and Ayhika Mukherjee with a score of 11-6 9-11 11-6 11-6 11-8 to cap off the third 1-2 positions for India in the Table Tennis Doubles events in Nepal.

Athletics again a good source of medals for India

Athletics was another major contributor to India's medal haul on Day 4 with ten medals across different events for India. Long-distance runner Suresh Kumar got the first gold medal of the day clinching top honours in the Men's 10,000m race clocking the best time of 29.33.61.

In the short sprint event of 200m, India got a 1-3 podium finish as India's Archana Suseent got the gold medal with a time of 23.66 seconds whereas AN Chandralekha settled for bronze medal clocking 24.27 seconds. Sandra Babu added another bronze medal for India with her performance in the Women's Long Jump event with her jump of 6.02 metres.

In the Men's Long Jump event, India managed a 1-2 podium finish as Lokesh Sathyana got the gold medal for his jump of 7.87 metres while Swaminathan Yadav finished with the silver behind him with his best jump of 7.77 metres.

The discus throw event saw India produce four medals as both Men and Women got 1-2 positions. Navjeet Kaur Dhillon got the gold medal in the Women's Discus throw with her throw of 49.85 metres followed by Suravi Biswas with the silver medal at 47.31 metres. The Men's event saw Kirpal Singh and Gagandeep Singh claim the gold medal and silver medal respectively with throws of 57.88 metres and 53.57 metres.

India's Sajan Lama and Gyandash Singh were silver medals in Wushu grabbing the second spots in the Men's Taolu Nan Quan All-rounder and Men's Taolu Taiji Jian events respectively.

Triathlon also brought one gold medal for India as the Mixed Team Relay event saw the team of Pragnya Mohan, M S Adarsh, Sarojini Devi Thoudam and Bishworjit Saikhom grab the top spot with their timing of 01:35:20 beating out close competition from Nepal and Sri Lanka.

India's Yashodhara Madhukar Sherkar got a bronze medal in the Women's Individual Downhill cycling event clocking a timing of 03:37:238 for the race distance of 1 kilometre.

India dominated the proceeding in the Taekwondo events on the day claiming six medals including three gold medals. Rodali Baruah (Women's Over 73 kg), Latika Bhandari (Women's 53 kg) and Jarnail Singh (Men's 74 kg) were the gold medal-winning athletes. Gaganjot Gill (Men's 62 kg) and Sourav (Men's 63 kg) grabbed silver medals whereas Chaitanya Inamdar settled for bronze in the Men's Over 87 kg category.

Indian Men and Women team were dominant in the Kho Kho team events as the Men defeated Bangladesh in the final whereas the Women got the better of the host team Nepal in the gold medal match. This marks the second time in a row at the South Asian Games that both the Men and Women have claimed the gold medals for India.

Shooting saw India add more glory after a good showing yesterday with the addition of two gold medals and one silver medal. The team of Annu Raj Singh, Gauri Sheoran and Neeraj Kaur won the 25-metre Pistol Women's Team event. Annu Raj Singh won the Individual gold medal in the 25-metre Pistol event as Gauri Sheoran picked up the silver medal.

Both the Men and Women Tennis teams got the gold medals at the South Asian Games 2019

To end the day on a bright note, the Indian Men and Women were triumphant with gold medals in the Team Tennis events as well. The Women's team faced off against the hosts Nepal as India thumped them 3-0 followed by the Men's team who repeated the 3-0 performance against the same opposition.

India's medal tally at the South Asian Games 2019

India's medal tally at the South Asian Games 2019 after the action on Day 4

India went past Nepal on the overall South Asian Games 2019 medal tally with a strong showing on the Day 4 and will aim to build upon this further with the action on Day 5.