Doping remained the big talking point in India’s Commonwealth Games campaign as last edition’s silver medal-winning judoka Tulika Maan stood suspended even before landing in Glasgow due to three whereabouts failures.
The country is assured of one medal so far after Olympic bronze-winning boxer Lovlina Borgohain got a bye into the middle-weight (75kg) semifinals.
The scaled down nature of the Games ensured that India didn’t have much to look forward to at least in the first half of the second day’s competitions.
Among the highlights was two-time Olympian swimmer Srihari Nataraj advancing to the men’s 50m backstroke semifinals even though he was joint 14th in the 16 who qualified for the next round.
But back in India, Maan’s ouster added another embarrassing chapter to India’s chequered doping record. Considered one of the strongest medal hopes in the +78kg category, Maan had to withdraw due to her anti-doping indiscretion for which she now stares at a two-year ban.
Her provisional suspension came a day after another judoka, Arun Kumar (-73kg) was withdrawn after testing positive for a banned steroid. The duo’s ouster reduced the judo team’s strength to 12, including six men and as many women.
It was relatively quiet in the powerlifting arena as well. Ashok Malik finished fourth in the men’s lightweight category after collecting 143.8 points, an effort which was not enough to be in the medal bracket.
Mark Swan of England won the gold with 153.9 points while Roland Ezuruike (153.9 points) of Nigeria and Bonnie Bunyau Gustin (153.5) of Malaysia took the silver and bronze respectively.
Another Indian in the fray, Paramjeet Kumar finished seventh overall with 135.6 points.
In the previous Games, a four-member Indian contingent had come back with one gold medal through Sudhir in the men’s heavyweight division. However, he was later banned for two years for an anti-doping rule violation and his medal forfeited.
Earlier Nataraj qualified for the men’s 50m backstroke semifinals, finishing joint 14th in heats.
Nataraj, who holds multiple national records, clocked 25.52 seconds alongside Bermuda’s Jack Harvey, just about making the semifinal start list, which comprises the top 16 from heats.
The Indian was fifth in his eight-man heat.
In para-swimming, India’s R V V B K Budigina and Imam Ali made the finals of 100m freestyle S13 event after all the eight swimmers who competed in the heats got through.
While Budigina was third in the heats with a timing of 57.10sec, Ali was bottom of the heap with 1:05.32sec.
The S13 classification is for athletes with visual impairments.
The Indian campaign is expected to pick up
The Games are being held inside an eight-mile radius across just four venues. The roster features just 10 disciplines, leaving out high-yielding competitions for India such as badminton, shooting, wrestling and hockey, among others.