India's biggest haul at Military World Games

India came up with its biggest ever medal haul at the Military World Games, finishing with two gold, one silver and seven bronze medals in the fourth edition of the event which ended here Sunday.

However, a large majority of the 196 Indian athletes in 14 events did not get close to the top three places, and the men accounted for all the medals in the seven-day event.

It is noteworthy that India was able to make a mark with a haul of 10 medals in only their second time of entering the Games.

In the last edition in Catania (Italy), India had grabbed a lone bronze medal through boxer Kehanand Beliwal.
As has been the history in the games, Russia (38 gold, 26 silver and 27 bronze), China (35-21-11) and Germany (5-10-13) proved to be supreme finishing as top three medal winners in the Games, while India finished at 19th spot amongst the 48 countries of the 103 getting into the medal bracket.

The Games move to Brazil in 2011.

This time too, Indian boxers were the most impressive as they accounted for a gold and four bronze medals.


India's first gold medal was won by the sailors in the event held in Mumbai through R Mahesh and Giridhar Yadav in the Military Class race.

Jitender Singh got the first games medal for India in the 400m Hurdles event, and Manipuri boxer, P Narjit Singh, completed the tally with a superb golden effort in the bantamweight category.

Shooters Vijay Kumar, C K Choudhary, Pemba Tamana and Hambir Singh, all from the Army Marksmanship Unit in Mhow, claimed the silver medal in the 25m Centre Fire Pistol Team category and Chatholi Hamza won a 1500m bronze dashing the hopes of current Asian champion Mohammud Othman Shaween of Saudi Arabia.

Strains and tension of competing against higher ranked athletes did not deter Jitender as he survived a tight race to finish third ahead of Konstantinos Anastasiou of Greece, who was breathing down his neck.

Jitender's last ditch effort helped him win the bronze behind top notch runners Edress Hawsawi of Saudi Arabia and Jesus Salas of Brazil.

As for Hamza, it was definitely a superb effort since he raced against well-known Kenyans and Shaween. The Indian was bunched with Gideon Gathimba and Shadrack Korir, bronze medallist in the recent Osaka World Championships, and Shaween.