Jetlee Singh strikes gold, upsets galore in shooting and archery

Guru Nanak Dev University's fencer Chingakham Jetlee Singh lived up to his billing in the men's epee, beating his teammate Shubham to strike gold, even as shooting and archery witnessed multiple upsets in the Khelo India University Games on Friday.

At the end of the day, 42 universities had won gold while 92 had made their presence felt on the medals table. As many as 13 medals were up for grabs in the competition on Friday, with the action centred on the piste as fencing events began at the Games.

Jetlee, a TOPS athlete, was one of four GNDU medallists — the most by any — in fencing. The biggest upset came from the shooting venue. Lovely Professional University's Sartaj Singh Tiwana beat Olympian Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar in the final of the men's 50m 3 positions to take gold. Tomar, representing Guru Nanak Dev University was top of the chart at the end of the qualification.

In the first knockout round of the men's recurve archery, Lovely Professional University's Aditya Choudhary, who had topped the qualification, bowed out to Ch Charan Singh University's Nishant. In women's recurve, Adamas University's Ruma Biswas had topped the qualification, and progressed through the knockouts with relative ease, before falling in the semifinals to Guru Jambeshwar University's Bhavna.

The track and field events will begin from Saturday. Asian Games silver medallist Dutee Chand, 400m runner Priya Mohan and long jumper Ancy Sojan were among the athletes seen training at the venue. "A lot of athletes participating at the KIUG 2021 have a tremendous amount of international exposure," Priya Mohan said.

"This is great for upcoming athletes and the competition, and puts pressure on those with experience. It's a great platform." The competition will kick off early in the morning, with the two longest distance running events (men and women 10,000m) scheduled first up.