Ace swimmer Richa Mishra from Delhi who bagged 11 Gold, 4 Silver and 1 Bronze medal was adjudged the Best Female Athlete, while Veer Dhaval Khade from Maharashtra who won 8 Gold,2 Silver and 2 Bronze medals was declared the best male athlete in the 15-day-long 34th National Games held at Jharkhand.

The Services team who topped the Medal Tally with 70 Gold, 50 Silver and 42 Bronze making a total of 162 medals was awarded the Raja Bhalendra Singh Trophy. Manipur stood second in the Medals Tally to retain their place as the best performer among the States with 48 Gold,37 Silver and 33 Bronze medals. In the Men’s Table Tennis Singles final held on the last day of the games, Sharath Kamal Achanta of Tamil Nadu prevailed upon West Bengal’s Anirban Nandi to clinch the Gold medal. Sharath dominated right from the beginning and defeated Anirban in straight sets 11-5, 11-9, 11-6 and 11-9.To secure a berth in the finals, Sharath defeated Raj Mondal of West Bengal in straight sets 11-3,11-4, 11-4 and 11-9. The second semi-final between Anirban Nandi and Sourav Chakraborty,both from West Bengal was nail biting. Anirban fought back gallantly to win after losing the first three sets. He prevailed upon Sourav 12-10, 11-6, 12-10 and 11-2. The Women’s Singles final between Madhurika Suhas (Maharastra) and Shamini Kumaresan (Tamil Nadu) was well balanced, with 3 all at the end of six sets. It was an exceptional display by adhurika in the seventh and final set that helped her clinch the Gold medal with the scores reading 11-5, 6-11, 12-10, 12-10, 11-13,8-11 and 11-2.The West Bengal duo of Anirban Nandi & Sourav Chakraborty defeated Sharath Kamal Anchal & V.A. Gnanasekaran from Tamil Nadu 11-9, 6-11,11-7 and 11-8 to clinch the Gold in the Men’s Double Final. It was an all Maharashtra affair in the Women’s Double final where Madhurika & Pooja beat their compatriots Mamta & Ashlesha 13-11, 11-8, and 11-9 to win the Women’s Double Gold for Maharashtra. In Mixed Doubles, after losing the first two sets, the pair from Tamil Nadu comprising of Sharath Kamal Achanta & Shamini kumaresan defeated the West Bengal pair of Sourav Saha and Ankita Das 8-11, 4-11, 11-4, 11-9 and 11-4 to take the Mixed Doubles Gold Medal.

Chattisgarh defeated Maharashtra to win the Gold medal in the Women’s Handball event at the packed Harivansh Tana Bhagat Indoor Stadium. The winners led 12-9 at half time and they sealed the affair with the final score of 30-19. Venkat Laxmi (chest no. 6) was the top scorer for Chattisgarh with 10 goals to her kitty,while Karishma and M Anita Rao had 5 and 6 to their name. For Maharashtra, Nisha Patil (chest no. 5) was the top scorer with 8 goals while Ujwala Shinde had 5. In the Men’s event after trailing 18-19 in the first half, the Services team prevailed over Jharkhand after the interval to clinch Gold with the final scores of 36-32.Many new national records were created at the games. In Archery, in Indian round men, a new national record was created when Sanjay Rai of Maharashtra bagged 661 points in the qualifying round. In the team event, A.

Suraj Singh, Sunil Oraon and P.G. Mandal of Services scored 1946 points in the qualifying round.In the Cycling event, Atul Singh, Sabir Singh, Vinod Malik, Sombir Singh, Amit Kumar of Services created a new record in the 4 km Team pursuit final by clocking the event in 04:43.635.They beat the old record of 04:45.695 by Punjab Team at the Hyderabad National Games. In the 3 km Team pursuit for women, Ch meshwori,K Suchitra Devi, Th Helen Devi, Y Sunita Devi of Manipur cycled in 04:04.2234 breaking their own team record of 4:17.895 held at Guwahati National Games. In Shooting, Annu Raj Singh of Haryana created a new record in 25m pistol in the qualifying and final, while Heena Sidhu of Punjab in 10m pistol and Vijay Kumar of Services in 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Men.In Swimming, all the medals and records were bagged by athletes from Delhi, Karnataka,Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

In Weightlifting, N Sunil Kumar of Tamil Nadu had a record just for day by lifting 121 kg snatch in the 62 kg category, which was broken by S Deva Kumar of Services by lifting 122kg snatch. K Ravi Kumar of Services and Manjeet Singh of Jharkhand created new records in the 69 kg and 94 kg category.In the Cycling 48 km Road Mass Start, all the three medals were bagged by Kerala Women namely Mahitha Mohan- Gold, Parvathi – Silver,Deepa Chandran – Bronze. In the 80km event for men, Haryana’s Pankaj bagged Gold, while Delhi’s Sachin Kumar and Arvind Panwar bagged Silver and Bronze. In Wrestling Men’s 55kg Greco Roman Style, Haryana’s Rajendra Kumar won Gold, followed by Delhi’s Manjeet and Punjab’s Hari Krishan and SSCB’s K.L.Yadav for Silver and Bronze. In the Men’s 120kg Free Style, MP’s Rohit Patel bagged Gold, while Haryana’s Naveen Kumar took Silver and SSCB’s Chander Pal and Delhi’s Fira Nagar Bronze. In the Men’s 120kg Greco Roman Style, Haryana’s Dharmendra got Gold followed by Jharkhand’s Rishi Pal and Maharashtra’s Dnyaneshwar Gochde and SSCB’s Devendra for the second and third spots respectively. In Women’s Judo Open Final, Karnataka’s Rohini Patil took the top spot, followed by Manipur’s Brojeshwari Devi and Haryana’s Divya D & Punjab’s Rajwinder Kaur took Bronze. In the Men’s Open Final, Haryana’s Narendra Singh took Gold, SSCB’s Bijender Singh Silver and Delhi’s Udaybi Singh and Punjab’s Satinder Pal Singh Bronze. In Hockey Women’s Final, Haryana defeated Jharkhand 3-1, while in the men’s Punjab defeated Jharkhand 2-0 to bag gold. In Netball Haryana defeated UP 44- 39, in women’s UP defeated Haryana 40-39.In Tennis, Women’s Single, Delhi’s Ratnika Batra bagged Gold, Andhra Pradesh’s Zainab Silver,Delhi’s Prerna Bhambri and Maharashtra’s Nupur Kaul Bronze.

In the Men’s Single, Maharashtra’s Karan Rastogi took Gold, TN’s Mithun Silver while Delhi’s Vivek Shokeen and Ashutosh Singh Bronze. In the Men Doubles, Delhi’s Vivek Shokeen and Ashutosh Singh took Gold, TN’s Mithun and Ajai Selvaraj Silver, Maharashtra’s Karan Rastogi, Nitin Kirtane and Shahbaz Khan,Rohan Gide Bronze. In the Women Doubles,Delhi’s Gopika, Prerna bagged Gold. In Football,Goa defeated SSCB 3-1, while in the men’s West Bengal beat Punjab 1-0.However, the games were marred by ugly incidents when the police had to intervene in two separate incidents.

At the Games Village, a heated argument between athletes turned nasty and the ‘fastest man of the meet’ Sameer Mon was at the centre of the storm. The Services sprinter, who won the 100m title,picked up a fight with an athlete from Jharkhand during the cultural programme and the incident escalated at the Food Plaza at dinner time. The Jharkhand police detained three sportsperson from the Services team for this. In Dhanbad,Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh teams clashed during a netball match, which resulted in six AP players being admitted to hospital with head injuries and fractured limbs. Jharkhand successfully hosted the 34th National Games in the second week of February after postponing it six times. Though the National Games are held once in two years, after Hyderabad ccessfully hosted the games in 2002, the next games were held in Guwahati in 2007 and after a gap of three years Jharkhand hosted in 2011. The 35th National Games are scheduled to be held in Kerala in 2012 followed by Goa and Chhattisgarh effectively. Curtains came down on the games after a spectacular show at Ranchi’s Birsa Munda Stadium by parachute divers from the Indian AirForce. Bollywood heartthrob Katrina Kaif and singer Shaan enthralled the 40,000 spectators with their mesmerising performances. Artists from Jharkhand also performed at the event.Among those present on the last day of the games included Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda, Chief Justice of State High Court Hon’ble Justice Bhagwati Prasad, Speaker of State Assembly C.P. Singh, Union Minister for Tourism Subodh Kant Sahai, Deputy CM and Sports Minister Sudesh Kumar Mahto, Deputy CM Hemant Soren, Sibu Soren, leader of Opposition, Rajendra Singh, IOA President,Suresh Kalmadi, acting JOA President R.K. Anand and State Chief Secretary A.K. Singh. Indian cricket captain M S Dhoni too took one day off to watch the games.