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Reliance Foundation-supported athletes shone brightly in Glasgow, ending the Commonwealth Games with a haul of two silver and one bronze medal for a total tally of three medals.
What made the medals even more special was their historic nature. Sreeshankar Murali, Lovlina Borgohain and Tejaswin Shankar were the three Reliance Foundation-supported athletes who returned with a podium finish in Glasgow, according to a press release. Sreeshankar repeated his silver-winning feat from the previous edition to continue his remarkable second coming after having had to miss the Paris Olympics because of a major knee injury. He's now the only Indian in history to win multiple long jump medals at the Commonwealth Games. He continued his super consistent streak of jumping beyond 8m in every competition this year. Borgohain added to her burgeoning list of medals with a silver and became just the 3rd Indian boxer ever after Mary Kom and Vijender Singh to medal at the big four events: Olympics, World Championships, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. She suffered a close loss in a highly competitive final to Australia's Emma-Sue Greentree. Tejaswin cemented his reputation as one of India's greatest athletes ever and arguably India's best all-round athlete with a bronze in the decathlon, India's first ever in the event. He became the 1st Indian ever to medal in multiple disciplines at the Commonwealth Games, having also become the 1st Indian ever to win a high jump CWG medal in the previous edition in Birmingham. His exemplary grit and resilience stood out as he competed with taping on his knee after having to pull out from the high jump event earlier after just one failed jump. Among the other Reliance Foundation-supported athletes who had a top eight finish were Aadarsh Ram (men's high jump) and Lokesh Sathyanathan (men's long jump), who both finished fifth, as well as Tejas Shirse (men's 110m hurdles) and Yashas Palaksha (men's 400m hurdles), who finished 8th in the finals. Animesh Kujur also made the semifinals of the men's 200m event after beating Emmanuel Eseme, the 100m champion from Cameroon, to finish first in his heat in a creditable display. With most of these athletes also in action at the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya later this year, their displays here will leave them with a lot of confidence and learnings for another marquee multi-sport event. (ANI)
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