Diu, May 21 (IANS) With three gold medals, all from pencak silat, hosts Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu kept their nose ahead of Manipur, Maharashtra and Delhi in the medal standings of the Khelo India Beach Games here on Wednesday.

Hosts DNHDD added a third pencak silat gold late on Tuesday evening when Princess Thomas won the creative solo event for women. Manipur won a pair while Punjab, Delhi and Maharashtra clinched one each to account for the eight golds awarded in pencak silat so far.

Four gold medals were decided on Wednesday – two each in 10 km open water swimming and sepak takraw (team event consisting of three players). In one of the most gruelling event of these Games, Maharashtra’s Diksha Yadav and Karnataka’s Renukacharya Hodmani won the women’s and men’s races in a fairly docile early morning Arabian Sea.

Sepak takraw has caught the imagination of sports lovers throughout the country. It was quite an attraction at the recently-held Khelo India Youth Games in Bihar and in Diu’s Ghoghla Beach, young boys and girls are excelling with their skills with their heads and feet.

It was a heartbreak for Manipur in the sepak takraw (trio team) finals early on Wednesday morning. The north-eastern state takes pride in this sport but lost both the men’s and women’s finals to Delhi and Haryana, respectively. Both finals, impacted by rain, were gripping affairs and saw identical 2-1 scorelines.

Delhi team captain Sandeep Kumar, 35, revealed how the sudden change in conditions proved crucial. “We lost the first regu before the rains, but the weather turned in our favour,” said Sandeep, who practices with the team near Majnu Ka Tila beside the Yamuna River in the national capital.

Renukacharya Hodmani of Karnataka and Diksha Yadav of Maharashtra bagged gold in the men’s and women’s sections, respectively, in their 10km open swimming event. Renukacharya, 17, started off with swimming when he was seven-year-old, but forayed into open water only three years back. He clinched the gold timing two hours nine minutes and 40 seconds.

Karnataka’s Diksha, too, has been in open competitive swimming for a very short time. “Swimming at the Arabian Sea was fun but there were moments my vision got obstructed due to the incoming waves. On top of that, there were jellyfish stings! I’m taking a lot of good experiences from the Khelo India Beach Games,” said Diksha, who clocked two hours 18 minutes and nine seconds to emerge on top.

Daman and Diu is tasting unprecedented success in pencak silat. The hosts picked up three out of eight available golds through Prasanna Narendra Bendre, Kirtana Manojkumar Acharya and Princess Thomas in the Tunggal Senior Male, Tunggal Senior Female and Creative Solo Female respectively. Prasanna, in the company of Sudhanshu Srivastava, also got a bronze in the ganda senior male category.

Manipur, meanwhile, picked up two gold in regu senior male and ganda senior male. One gold each went to Delhi (regu senior female), Punjab (creative solo male) and Maharashtra (ganda senior female).

In these Games ending May 24, there are six – soccer, volleyball, kabaddi, open swimming, sepak takraw and pencak silat — medal sports and two non-medal sports (mallakhamb and tug-of-war).

–IANS

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