Overseas Indians did not win many medals in the just concluded Commonwealth Games. They, however, won many hearts. They brought honors to their new lands of abode. England and  Canada. These nations had them among their medal winners. Amarveer Singh Dhesi, Jasprit Singh Phulka and Nishan Randhawa (wrestling Canada), Bikramjit Gill (3×3 basketball for men, bronze Canada) , Priyanka Dhillon (boxing Canada), Kyle Kothari (diving England) and Mandheer Singh Konner (wrestling England) had a podium finish in Birmingham. Besides, Suraj Singh (wrestling New Zealand) missed the podium by a whisker. In all,42 athletes of Indian origin represented seven countries in the Games. The countries they represented were Canada, England, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Kenya. Five of them – four for Canada and one for England – were among medalists.

As expected, Australia  remained unsurpassable in the Commonwealth. It retained its leadership title in the 22nd Commonwealth Games  by winning 178 medals, including 67 gold, to edge out the hosts England.

Australia’s wrap up came with a superb 7-0 win over India in the final of the men’s hockey competition.

Host nation England secured its most successful Commonwealth Games ever with a raft of medals on the final day taking it to 176. It was just two medals short of the leaders tally of 178.

England’s previous best medal tally was 174 – set at Glasgow 2014. It entered the final day at Birmingham 2022 in 166 and ticked past its previous record with gold and silver in the men’s doubles Squash final.

With a number of finalists guaranteeing medals, it was the diving gold and silver for the pairings of Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix and Noah Williams and Lois Toulson and Kyle Kothari which effectively sealed  its record haul.

England ended a close second with 173 medals and its tally included 56 gold, 64 silver and 53 bronze medals. And its tally included a  silver by Kyle Kothari and a bronze medal won by Mandhir Singh Kooner of Punjab origin. India finished fourth, behind Canada, with an aggregate of 61 medals, including 22 gold. In the last edition of the Games at Gold Coast, India had won 66 medals, including 16 medals in shooting. This time, both shooting and archery were excluded from the programme in Birmingham. India’s medal tally saw dominance of athletes of Haryana, especially boxers (both men and women), and wrestling (both men and women).

Incidentally, these two high contact sports gave India 19 medals, including nine gold. Nitu (Boxing), Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik (wrestling) were the women gold medal winners from Haryana. Bajrang Punia, Deepak Punia, Ravi Kumar, Naveen (wrestling), Amit (boxing) gave India gold in their respective sports.

Athletes from Punjab won honors – silver and bronze medals – in weightlifting. Harjinder Kaur, Vikas Thakur, Lovepreet Singh and Gurdeep Singh were Punjab medalists. Besides, the silver medal winning men’s hockey team and bronze medal winner Indian women’s hockey team were also represented by Punjab players. Men’s team was led by Manpreet Singh of Punjab. Canada had an impressive haul of 92 medals as it had 26 gold medal winners besides 32 silver and 34 bronze medalists.

The 12-day Games that attracted nearly 4500 athletes from 72 member nations of the Commonwealth witnessed some exciting and interesting competitions with the world javelin throw champion Peterson of Grenada beaten by Pakistani thrower. Defending champion in javelin, Neeraj Chopra, dropped out at the last minute because of a groin injury he incurred in the Eugene World Championship.

While Canada won most of its medals – 20 – in aquatics, it also won its first ever silver medal in Squash besides showing strong presence in both Wrestling and Weightlifting.

In Wrestling, Canada won nine medals, including three, one of which came from Amarveer Singh Dhesi, a wrestler of Punjabi origin. And two of bronze medals went to other grapplers of Punjabi origin, Jasprit Singh Phulka and Nishan Randhawa. In weightlifting Canada won eight medals that included two gold medals. The Canadian dominance in 3×3 basketball was nearly complete as it won four medals, including two gold, one of which came in wheelchair category. In the absence of some of its top athletes, including sprinter de Grasse, Canada had an impressive haul of  four gold, one silver and two bronze medals in the track and field competitions.

Besides wrestling, in another sport of close contact, Judo, Canada won four gold three silver and one bronze medal.

Of four medals won in Boxing, Priyanka Dhillon of Punjabi origin, contributed a bronze in the 45-48 kg category.

For India, the major scoring areas were wrestling  – 12 medals, including six gold and one silver -and weightlifting 10.

In the absence of Neeraj Chopra, India won eight medals in track and field, including its first ever double – a gold and a silver – in triple jump for men. In Boxing, India did very well by winning seven medals, including three gold. A gold and silver in Lawn Bowls were a pleasant addition to the Indian medals tally. In the maiden competition for women in cricket, India ended with a Silver losing a close match to Australia by nine runs.

In badminton, India made a clean sweep of singles titles for men (Lakshya Sen) and women (PV Sindhu) besides winning the men’s doubles title though it had to contend with a silver in the mixed team contest.

Table tennis also gave India, not only the men’s team title but also men’s singles  and mixed doubles title with Sharath Kamal Achanta contributing a lion’s share to the Indian tally.

(Prabhjot Singh is a veteran journalist with over three decades of experience covering a wide spectrum of subjects and stories. He has covered  Punjab and Sikh affairs for more than three decades besides covering seven Olympics and several major sporting events and hosting TV shows. For more in-depth analysis please visit probingeye.com  or follow him on Twitter.com/probingeye. He can be reached at Prabhjot416@gmail.com)