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Sweet Home-coming for India's
Commonwealth Team NEW DELHI: The Indian contingent, flush with success at the Commonwealth Games held in Manchester, England, received a tumultous welcome when they arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday. India collected 32 gold, 21 silver and 19 bronze medals in their best-ever showing at the Games to finish third overall behind Australia and England. Fans distributed sweets, danced to the traditional Bhangra music and profusely garlanded the Indian sportspersons as they trooped out of the airport lounge. It is an unusual show of affection in a cricket-crazy nation and the players and athletes were pleasantly surprised. "Pistol king" Jaspal Rana and "Rifle queen" Anjali Bhagvat have won four gold medals each in shooting. "It feels good. I am very happy about it. Not just me, the whole team has performed very well in all the games such as hockey, weightlifting, etc," Rana said. The 34-member shooting contingent has won 14 gold, six silver and eight bronze medals. Weightlifting contributed 13 golds while Indian women clinched the hockey gold. "We got a lot of international exposure as we shared experiences of other sports people. This really helped us. Our morale was also high because of some previous victories we had registered in the recent past," Bhagwat said. Union Sports Minister Uma Bharti said the unprecedented success at the Commonwealth Games should be a launchpad for bigger achievements at this year's Asian Games and the 2004 Olympics Athens. "We are working hard for the Asian Games. One additional advantage of this victory is that it has given a lot of weight to our candidature for the 2012 Olympics that we want to hold in India. We are working really hard to do even better at all events," Bharti said. She announced a huge increase in the government's cash incentive for the Manchester medal winners, who will receive two million rupees (approximately 41,120 dollars), 1.5 million rupees (30,840 dollars) and one million rupees (20,560 dollars) for gold, silver and bronze respectively. However, India's jubilation has been marred by the positive dope test of 62 kg lifter Krishnan Madasamy, who was stripped of three silver medals on Saturday. Madasamy tested positive for a metabolite of the banned anabolic steroid nandrolone. A second lifter, double gold medallist Satheesha Rai, has also failed a drugs test. India managed a lone bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics through woman weightlifter Karnam Malleswari while tennis player Leander Paes came third in the men's singles at the 1996 Atlanta games in 1996 in the only podium finish. -ANI |