our wrestlers did us proud in Edinburgh/Suresh Kumar Lau



Guru Hanuman



At the Scottish city of Edinburgh in 1970, once again our wrestlers did us proud. Child sensation Ved Prakash, a prodigy of Guru Hanuman of Delhi, won a gold medal in the lightweight class (under 48 kg) category. He was the youngest to win a gold in Commonwealth Games. Ved, was almost banned because of his age. He claimed fourteen, but look about twelve. India won nine medals (five gold, three silver and a bronze medals in wrestling). Ved Prakash (Light Flyweight – 48 kg), Sudesh Kumar (Flyweight – 52 kg), Udey Chand (Lightweight – 68 kg), Mukhtiar Singh (Welterweight – 74 kg) and Harish Chandra Rajindra (Middleweight – 82 kg) all bagged gold medals and India got the team championship in wrestling. Mohinder Singh Gill won a bronze in triple jump clearing 15.90 m. S. Bhonsle (Boxing) in welterweight (67 kg) and Mohal Lal Ghosh (Weightlifting) in 60 kg category won bronze medals. At Christchurch in 1974, India maintained it sixth position in the medal tally despite capturing fewer number of gold medals. India won 4 gold, 8 silver and 3 bronze medals. In fact, every member of the wrestling team won a medal. Among them, Sudesh Kumar had honour of retaining his weight category title. In 1978 at Edmonton, again it was the matmen who did us proud, but with a reduced medal tally of 3 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze medals. Prakash Padukone provided gold touch winning the men’s singles badminton title. Edatthur Karunakaran who won a gold with a record lift of 205 kg in flyweight (52 kg) category. It was the first time that Queen had opened the Games and the first time that Canada had finished at the top of the medal. In Brisbane, Queensland, Australia in 1982, India bagged 5 gold, 8 silver and 3 bronze medals and retained its sixth position in medals tally for the fourth time in succession. At Victoria, Indian wrestlers failed to win a single gold but Shooting and Weightlifting squads won three gold each. Mansher Singh, Jaspal Rana along with Roopa Unikrishnan underlined the emergence of India as shooting powerhouse. B. Adisekhar and Veeraswamy kept up the dominance in weightlifting. With 6 gold, 11 silver and 7 bronze medals, India occupied 6^th position in the medal tally.