Curtains came down on the XIXth Commonwealth Games at Delhi on October 14, 2010 with India securing the second position in the medals tally with a haul of 101 medals that included 38 golds to silence the criticism that erupted before the start of the games.

 It was happy to note that in a country where women are most shunned, it was they who won the maximum medals for the country and put it on top. Discuss thrower Krishna Poonia became the first Indian woman to win athletics gold at Commonwealth Games, and the second Indian to win a Games track and field title, after Milkha Singh in 1958. The 4X400m women’s relay team, led by Mandeep Kaur, surpassed others to pick up gold. India had won nine track and field medals at the games since 1958. At Delhi, it picked up a dozen medals alone, including two gold. Speaking on the women power, former athlete, P T Usha said that she had never seen some of the girls run like this before.

 The girl to take the country to the century mark tally was none other than our very own Hyderabadi Saina Nehwal, who picked up the badminton singles gold. Also who scripted success at the Delhi games include the hockey team. They entered the hockey finals but went down to Australia. At one time, at the Olympic Games, Indian hockey team was undefeated and claimed six golds between 1928 and 1956. After the introduction of the game at the Commonwealth Games in 1998, India has returned empty handed.

 Among the notables who performed brilliantly at CWG for India is Gagan Narang who won four golds, while the sportsman to win the maximum number of medals at the event is A. Coutts (AUS), five medals. Australia’s Croak won gold in two different sports-cycling and diving. Australian sportsmen have held the country’s flag high since 1990 by topping at the medals table. Australia created history when its hockey team won the 800th gold and Kasey Brown clinched the country’s 2000th medal. Canada kept up its cent per cent record in synchronized swimming which it has been claiming since 1986, while Botswana, Cayman Islands and St. Vincent and Grenadines claimed their first gold.

 Various institutions and state governments have honoured the award winning sportsmen and presented them many cash awards. At a felicitation organised by Minerals and Metals Trading Corporation (MMTC), State Trading Corporation (STC) and Project Equipment Corporation (PEC) each gold medal winner was presented Rs.7.5 lakh, silver medallist Rs. 5 lakh and bronze medallist Rs. 3.5 lakh. The Indian men’s hockey team that won the silver was presented a cash award of Rs. 16 lakh and the Indian women’s 4x400 metre relay team was presented Rs. 8 lakh.

The Haryana government along with Maruti Suzuki presented 32 cars to 17 gold, seven silver and eight bronze medallists from the State. To boost the sportsmen from the state, the State government said that athletes winning gold medal at the London Olympics in 2012 would receive a cash prize of Rs 2 crore.
Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said that to promote sports new sporting academies would be set up at Jind (Kabaddi), Rohtak (athletics), Shahbad (women’s hockey), Sirsa (men’s hockey), Faridabad (shooting), Sonepat (wrestling) and Panchkula (lawn tennis and badminton). He said that work was also in progress for a cricket academy at Jhajjar, boxing academy at Bhiwani, football academy at Gurgaon and basketball academy at Kiloi in Rohtak district.

After achieving success at Delhi games, the scene now shifts to Asian Games at Guangzhou, China, where games would be held from November 12-27.  India has hope of winning medals in shooting, wrestling and athletics. At CWG, Indian shooters bagged 30 medals, including 14 gold, while wrestlers won 19, including 10 gold. In the track and field event, the Indians won two golds in a haul of 12 medals. However, national shooting coach Sunny Thomas is wary of the Indian performance. He said that the competition would be tough in China with participation of Japan and South Korea. There should not be high hopes on the athletes as it would be difficult to achieve their CWG mark.

The notable absentees at China Games would be World Champion Sushil Kumar because of injury and tennis giants Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi to other commitments. At the last games, the duo had won the men’s doubles gold while Paes and Sania Mirza had won the mixed doubles event. This time Paes has decided to skip the Asian Games as he has qualified for the World Tour Finals in London, while Bhupathi has yet to confirm his participation. However, Sania Mirza and Somdev Devvarman would keep India’s hope alive in the singles. Even chess players Viswanathan Anand and Koneru Humpy are missing from the team list.

Medal hopes rest on the women’s 4x400m relay team, which won the gold at Doha in 2006, and triple jumper Renjith Maheswary. The women’s relay team won the gold at CWG with a timing of 3:27.77 stands out in Asia. Bronze medallist Renjith’s 17.07 m is the best mark by an Asian this season. Discus thrower Krishna Poonia’s 61.51 metre, that fetched her Commonwealth gold, has been bettered by 20 other women in the world this season (her season’s best, 63.69 m, recorded in the US, ranks 10th).

CWG Medal Winners
Archery:
Gold Medal
Rahul Banerjee – men’s recurve (Individual)
Deepika Kumari, Dola Banerjee, Bombayala Devi – women’s recurve (Team)
Deepika Kumari – women’s recurve (Individual)
Silver Medal
Chinna Raju, Ritul Chaterjee, Jignesh Chittibomma – men’s compound (Team)
Bronze Medal
Jayanta Talukdar – men’s recurve (Individual)
Gagandeep Kaur,  Bheigyabati Chanu, Jhanu Hansda – women’s compound (Team)
Dola Banerjee – women’s recurve (Individual)
Jayanta Talukdar, Tarundeep Rai, Rahul Banerjee – men’s recurve
 Athletics:
Gold Medal
A.C. Ashwini, Manjeet Kaur, Mandeep Kaur and Sini Jose – women’s 4x400m Relay
Krishna Poonia – women’s discus throw
Silver Medal
Vikas Shive Gowda – Men’s discus throw
Harwant Kaur – women’s discus throw
Prajusha Maliakkal – women’s long jump
Bronze Medal
Kashinath Naik – men’s javelin throw
Seema Antil  – women’s discus throw
M. Rahamatulla, Sathya Suresh, Shameermon and Abdul Najeeb Qureshi – men’s 4x100m relay
S. Geetha, Srabani Nanda, P.K. Priya and H.M. Jyothi – women’s 4x100m relay
Renjith Maheswary – men’s triple jump
Kavita Raut – women’s 10,000m
Harminder Singh – men’s 20 Km race walk
Aquatics:
Bronze Medal
Prasanta Karmakar, para sport – men’s 50m freestyle,S9
Badminton:
Gold Medal
Saina Nehwal – women’s singles
Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa – women’s doubles
Silver Medal
Saina Nehwal, Parupalli Kashyap, Chetan Anand, Jwala Gutta, V.Diju, Ashwini Ponnappa, Rupesh Kumar, Sanave Thomas – mixed team
Bronze Medal
Parupalli Kashyap – men’s singles
Boxing:
Gold Medal
Manoj Kumar (64kg)
Suranjoy Mayengbam (52 kg)
Paramjeet Samota (+91kg)
Bronze Medal
Jai Bhagwan (60kg)
Amandeep Singh (49kg)
Dilbag Singh (69kg)
Vijender Singh (75kg)
Gymnastics (Artistic):
Silver Medal
Ashish Kumar – men’s vault
Bronze Medal
Ashish Kumar – men’s floor
Hockey:
Silver Medal
Men’s team
Shooting:
Gold Medal
Omkar Singh, Gurpreet Singh – men’s 10m air pistol (Pairs)

Gagan Narang and Abhinav Bindra – men’s 10m
air rifle (Pairs)
Vijay Kumar and Harpreet Singh – men’s 25m centrefire pistol (Pairs)
Vijay Kumar and Gurpreet Singh – men’s 25m rapid fire pistol (Pairs)
Gagan Narang and Imran Hasan Khan – men’s 50m rifle 3 positions (Pairs)
Heena Sindu and Anuraj Singh – women’s 10m air pistol (Pairs)
Anisa Sayyed and Rahi Sarnobat – women’s 25m pistol (Pairs)
Vijay Kumar – men’s 25m rapid fire pistol
Gagan Narang – men’s 10m air rifle
Gagan Narang – men’s 50m rifle 3 positions
Anisa Sayyed – women’s 25m pistol
Harpreet Singh – men’s 25m centrefire pistol (Singles)
Omkar Singh – men’s 10m air pistol
Omkar Singh – men’s 50m pistol
Silver Medal
Abhinav Bindra – men’s 10m air rifle
Samresh Jung, Chandrasekhar Kumar Chaudary – men’s 25m standard pistol (Pairs)
Omkar Singh and Deepak Sharma – men’s 50m pistol (Pairs)
Ronjon Sodhi and Asher Noria – men’s double trap (Pairs)
Mansher Singh and Manavjot Singh Sandhu – men’s trap (Pairs)
Tejaswani Sawant and Lajja Gauswami – women’s 50m rifle 3 positions (Pairs)
Vijay Kumar – men’s 25m centrefire pistol (Singles)
Rahi Sarnobat – women’s 25m pistol
Tejaswini Sawant – women’s 50m rifle prone (Singles)
Heena Sidhu – women’s 10m air pistol
Ronjan Sodhi – men’s double trap
Bronze Medal
Suma Shirur and Kavita Yadav – women’s 10m air rifle (Pairs)
Meena Kumari and Tejaswani Sawant – women’s 50m prone rifle (Pairs)
Samaresh Jung  – men’s 25m standard pistol (Singles)
Manavjit Singh Sandhu – men’s trap (Singles)
Gurpreet Singh  – men’s 25m rapid fire pistol
Table Tennis:
Gold Medal
Sharath Kamal and Subhajit Saha – men’s doubles
Silver Medal
Poulomi Ghatak, Mouma Das, Shamini Kumaresan, Madhurika Patkar, Mamta
Prabhu – women’s team
Bronze Medal
Sharath Kamal – men’s singles
Sharath Kamal, Soumyadeep Roy, Subhajit Saha, Amalraj Anthony and Abhishek
Ravichandran – men’s team
Poulomi Ghatak and Mouma Das – women’s doubles
Tennis:
Gold Medal:
Somdev Devvarman – men’s singles
Silver Medal
Sania Mirza – women’s singles
Bronze Medal
Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhuptahi – men’s doubles
Sania Mirza and Rushmi Chakravarthi – women’s doubles
Weightlifting:
Gold Medal
Ravi Kumar Katulu – men’s 9kg
Renu Bala Chanu – women’s 58kg
Silver Medal
Soniya Chanu – women’s 48kg
Sukhen Dey – men’s 56kg
Bronze Medal:
Rani Devi Sandhya – women’s 48kg
Sudhir Kumar Chitradurga – men’s 77kg
Monika Devi Laishram – women’s 75kg
V.S. Rao – men’s 56kg
Wrestling:
Gold Medal
Anita – women’s 67kg free style
Yogeshwar Dutt – men’s 60kg free style
Geeta – women’s 55kg free style
Sushil Kumar – men’s 66kg free style
Alka Tomar – women’s 59kg free style
Narsingh Panch Yadav – men’s 74kg free style
Anil Kumar – men’s 96kg (greco roman)
Rajender Kumar – men’s 55kg (greco roman)
Sanjay – men’s 74kg (greco roman)
Ravinder Singh – 60kg men’s (greco roman)
Silver Medal
Nirmala Devi – women’s 48kg free style
Anuj Kumar – men’s 84kg free style
Joginder Kumar – men’s 120kg free style
Babita Kumari – women’s 51kg free style
Manoj Kumar – men’s 84kg (greco roman)
Bronze Medal
Anil Kumar – men’s 55kg free style
Suman Kundu – women’s 63kg free style
Dharmender Dalal – men’s 120kg (greco roman)
Sunil Kumar – men’s 66kg (greco roman)

Medals Tally
Country            Gold    Silver   Bronze   Total
Australia            74         55        48         177
India                 38         27        36         101
England             37         59        46         142
Canada              26        17         32           75
S. Africa            12        11         10          33
Kenya                12        11          9           32
Malaysia             12        10         13          35
Singapore           11        11          9          31
Nigeria               11        10         10         35
Scotland               9        10          7          26
New Zealand         6        22         8           36
Cyprus                  4          3          5           12