Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, May 27:
Exhibiting grit and agility State Taekwondo players added five more gold to its tally to surge ahead of its nearest opponent Karnataka on the penultimate day of the three day 25th National Junior Taekwondo Championship being held at Khuman Lampak Indoor Stadium.
The State martial artistes also added two more bronze to its kitty to stay on top of the medal chart at seven gold, one silver and three bronze followed by Karnataka with two gold, three silver and one bronze pushing Maharashtra to third, adding only one silver and bronze today.
S Johny began the second day�s gold medal hunt with a comfortable 10-5 win against Parth Shukla of Uttar Pradesh in boys bantam weight with the bronze medals going to Karnataka�s Davinder Singh and Arjun Barla of Jharkhand.
M Oken Meitei than took the State gold tally to four scoring 7-2 win against his welter weight final rival Fairoz Khan of Karnataka.
Sandeep Chaudhury (Uttaranchal) and Sujeet Kumar Baghel (UP) shared the bronze medals.
The fifth gold came in girls category with S Surbala Devi literally toying with her Mizoram opponent - Linda Lalchungnungi - winning the bantam weight final bout at 7-0.RK Diana failed to emulate her state-mate�s feat losing by a single point to UP�s Ashu Yadav in the middle weight semi final bout.
Ashu went down to Aditi bajaj of Karnataka 3-5 in the final with the other bronze bagged by Rashmi R Naik of Goa.
Oinam Landhoni Devi, representing Kerala claimed the girls� heavy weight title after outclassing A Tejmala of Manipur 20-7 in the semis and Supriya B Joshi of Maharashtra in the final bout.
Saiengpuii Sailo of Mizoram secured the other bronze medal in the weight group.
Muhammad Abash Khan bulged the State�s lead by staving off the challenge of Delhi�s Vishal Arya in the boys� middle weight final where Subashis Mallick Chowdhary of Nagaland and Mizoram�s PC Lalbiakmawia had to be content with the bronze medals.
The second day�s competition culminated with Manipur adding the sixth gold medal through K roshni, who crushed C Lalrohhara of Mizoram with a winning margin of 7-2 in the boys heavy weight category.
Murali of Kerala and S Kamando Singh of the CRPF took the bronze medals as semi final losers.
In the other medal bouts of the day, Srishti Singh fetched UP�s first gold medal defeating Reshma mohanan K of Karnataka in the girls� welter weight class while D Yongmita Lepcha (Sikkim) and Darshanjita Bharali (Assam) took the bronze medals.
The remaining bouts and closing ceremony of the championship being organised by All Manipur Taekwondo Association under the auspices of Taekwondo Federation of India will be held at 4 pm tomorrow with Art and Culture Minister Ph Parijat and Manipur Olympic Association president Elangbam Binoykumar as the chief guest and president respectively.
Sports Minister Govindas Konthoujam, Lok Sabha MP Dr T Meinya and TFI secretary general T Praveen kumar would be the guests of honour.