Picture Credit: Twitter
Ace Indian paddler Sharath Kamal defeated England's Liam Pitchford in the men's singles final to win the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham. While he lost the first game 13-11, he levelled the score by taking the second game 11-7, he exerted his dominance in the third game which he won 11-2 before extending his lead to 3-1 by winning the fourth game 11-6. The fifth game was a close contest but eventually it was the Indian who won the game 11-8 and the match 4-1.
This is India's fourth gold medal on the final day of the multi-sports event after PV Sindhu and Lakshya Sen managed to win a gold medal each in the women's singles and men's singles badminton respectively while the men's doubles duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty also struck gold. This is a remarkable achievement for 40-year-old Sharath Kamal who had won the gold medal in the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games as a youngster and has now repeated the same as a veteran and a legend of the sport.
In the 2018 Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast in Australia, Kamal had bagged a bronze medal in the men's singles. Earlier, Sharath also bagged the gold medal in the men's mixed doubles event while clinching another gold at the men's team event of the Commonwealth Games. In addition, he had clinched the silver medal in the Men's doubles table tennis in Birmingham earlier which means he draws curtains to the Birmingham Games with a total of 4 medals.