Indian race walker Rani Yadav has tested positive for a banned steroid and has been provisionally suspended from the Commonwealth Games, the Games Federation (CGF) said on Wednesday. The 20-year-old, who finished sixth in the women's 20 km walk last Saturday, had her suspension extended at a hearing later on Wednesday.
"Ms Yadav has asked for the B sample to be tested," read a CGF statement. "That result is expected within 48 hours from the time of the request." Yadav's first sample showed traces of 19-Norandrosterone, a metabolite of the banned muscle-building steroid nandrolone. Yadav is the third athlete to fail a dope test at the October 3-14 Games after Nigerians Osayemi Oludamola, who was stripped of the 100 metres gold medal, and 110m hurdler Samuel Okon.
"It's very unfortunate," Lalit Bhanot, secretary general of the local organising committee, told a news conference. "We tried our level best. Not only the federations but also the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) tried with our out-of-competition tests. Sri Lanka celebrates
Sri Lanka on Wednesday won its first gold medal in 72 years and India picked up three to prevent a rout by British boxers in the Commonwealth Games boxing finals. Manju Wanniarachchi, a 30-year-old lingerie factory worker from Kandy, beat Wales' Sean McGoldrick in the bantamweight division, sparking wild celebrations among his team and Sri Lankan fans at the Talkatora Indoor Stadium.
"It's a great victory for us after 72 years," his manager Dian Gomes told AFP. "It means so much for boxing in Sri Lanka. This is one of the greatest victories of all time. It's as good as winning the cricket World Cup." The Sri Lankan fighter had already become his country's first boxing medal winner since the Auckland Games in 1950 by winning his quarter-final on Sunday, guaranteeing him at least a bronze.
The last gold was won by Ansdale "Barney" Henricus in Sydney in 1938. Wanniarchchi was the only non-British boxer to win gold in the first session of the contest, but India added three in the second to stop a rout by the British "home nations". In the end, British boxers won six of the 10 golds on offer (Northern Ireland three, England two, Scotland one).
India's Suranjoy Mayengbam won flyweight gold without having to throw a punch after Kenya's Benson Njangiru failed to show. The referee declared the 24-year-old a winner by a walkover. Manoj Kumar immediately followed up with a win against England's Bradley Saunders by 11-2 on points in the light welterweight division.
Singapore's table tennis squad took a fifth gold at the Commonwealth Games Wednesday to underline their dominance of the sport while India's men gave the home crowd a title to cheer. The south-east Asian city state's Feng Tianwei led a clean sweep of the women's medals to a cap a glittering week in which the team have won all but one of the tournament's six finals so far.
"I'm quite tired now as I've played 13 matches in the last three days with our matches stretching from morning till night," said Feng, Singapore's sportswoman of the year and the world number two, who outclassed Yu Mengyu, taking just 25 minutes to see off the second seed 4-1. Wang Yuegu took bronze, beating Sun Beibei, also Singaporean in a marathon seven-set match.
Wang now has three medals following golds in the women's team and mixed doubles events, and will add a gold or silver in the women's doubles on Thursday, the last day of the Games. Men's doubles favourites Sharath Kamal Achanta and Subhajit Saha of India had earlier brought a noisy home crowd to their feet to take gold. They beat Singapore's Gao Ning and Yang Zi in a tense final, going behind in the first set before rallying to level the match and then taking a fifth set decider 11-8.
In the men's singles semi-finals, Singapore had the upper hand on India with defending champion Achanta going out to Yang in a seven-set thriller - one of the longest matches of the tournament at 42 minutes - while top seed Gao beat the lowest ranked player left in the draw, India's Soumyadeep Roy, 4-0. The final on Thursday will see a 1-2 finish by one country for the first time in Games history. It will also be Singapore's first ever gold in the event. Rob Weale of Wales won the men's singles title of the Commonwealth Games lawn bowls competition when he beat Australian Leif Selby in the final on Wednesday.
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