J&K girls waltz to maiden gold

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: While many of India's elite athletes have given the 35th National Games a miss citing various reasons, here's a team that had trained precisely for this competition.
And, their efforts over the last year-and-a-half, bore fruit on Wednesday when Jammu & Kashmir won gold in the girls' team championships of the rhythmic gymnastics event at the Jimmy George Indoor stadium.
The triumph was even more special since it was their first-ever gold medal in the discipline at the National Games. The trio of Palak Kour, Mitali Dogra and Mridul Gupta tallied 82.15 points in the hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon events and took the top honours ahead of Punjab who stood second with 81.7 points and Maharashtra who returned with the bronze tallying 81.45.
"It's a memorable day for us," coach SP Singh told TOI.
"We had put in a lot of hard work over the last 18 months and today's result was possible not only because of our girls' efforts, but also thanks to the help we have been getting from the Jammu & Kashmir Sports Council," he added. Bronze for Kerala's Shinoj M Shinoj, meanwhile, gave the hosts something to cheer about in the artistic gymnastics individual all-round final when he clinched bronze on Wednesday. He tallied 76.25 points.