National Games: Kerala enters football final

Kerala defeated Assam 3-0, via the tiebreaker, and entered the men’s football final of the 38^th National Games at Haldwani on Wednesday.

The teams were goalless at the end of the regular period.

Captain Ajay Alex, Sachin Sunil and Bijesh T. Balan were successful for Kerala in the tiebreaker.

In the compound archery event here, Rajasthan’s former World Championship silver medallist Rajat Chauhan and Haryana’s Deepshikha won the men’s and women’s individual golds at the Rajiv Gandhi cricket stadium.

“My last National Games gold came in Thiruvananthapuram in 2015,” said Rajat who had also won the compound team gold at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta.

Meanwhile, the presence of Aditi Gopichand Swami, the first Indian to win an individual World Championship title in 2023, could not help Maharashtra to the women’s compound team title. Maharashtra took the silver behind champion Punjab.

The results: Compound archery:

Men’s individual: 1. Rajat Chauhan (Raj) 144, 2. Hritik Sharma (J&K) 141, 3. Thirumuru Ganesh Mani Ratnam (AP) 149.

Women’s individual: 1 Deepshikha (Har) 148, 2. Parneet Kaur (Pun) 144, 3. Avneet Kaur (Pun) 143.

Mixed team event: 1. Haryana (Rishabh Yadav & Deepshikha) 154, 2. Andhra Pradesh (148), 3. Punjab (158).

Men’s team event: 1. Delhi (Abhishek Verma, Priyansh, Aman Saini, Madhur) 234, 2. Haryana (232), 3. Rajasthan (229).

Women’s team event: 1. Punjab (Parneet Kaur, Avneet Kaur, Jasveer Kaur, Raj Kaur) 228, 2. Maharashtra (227), 3. Telangana (232).