UNITED KINGDOM: Vice-captain Harmanpreet Singh scored a hat-trick as the Indian men’s hockey team beat Wales 4-1 in their final Group B match to qualify for the Commonwealth Games semi-finals in Birmingham on Thursday. Harmanpreet (19th, 20th, 40th minute) converted two penalty corners and scored one from the spot, while Gurjant Singh struck for India in the 49th minute.
Wales also made several entries into the circle inside the Indian D and their best chance came when an unmarked Carlson’s shot was saved by the onrushing Sreejesh from a one-on-one situation.
After a barren first quarter, India secured back-to-back penalty corners in the 18th minute, the second of which was scored by the ever-reliable Harmanpreet with a low powerful strike to the ground.
Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson Herah also made her name known at the Commonwealth 100m where her experience spoke for itself, Thompson claimed the gold clocking a time of 10.95 seconds on Wednesday.
Thompson- Herah, a five-time Olympic champion made a clean start, defeating England’s Daryll Neita. Neita, dominated the semi-finals, running a personal best time of 10.90 seconds but unfortunately could have only claimed bronze in the finals.
Elaine fondly known as the sprint queen or the fastest woman alive in the 100 metres, just returning from World Championships was unable to claim the top spot there, after claiming third place when she was defeated by her teammates Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson when the team Jamaican made a clean sweep in the 100 metres Dash at the World Athletics Championships held in Eugene, Oregon.
Thompson-Herah went down in history as the first female sprinter, and the second sprinter after her former teammate Usain Bolt, to claim the gold in a “sprint double” at consecutive Olympics, capturing the 100 metres and 200 metres at the 2016 Olympics held in Rio, where she became the first woman since Florence Griffith- Joyner’s performance in 1988 to gold in the 100 metres and 200 metres at the Olympics and again at the 2020 Olympics held in Tokyo.
Following her 2020 Toyko performance, Elaine set another personal best and Diamond League in the 100 metres stopping the clock at 10.54 seconds. She also became the first woman to break the 40km/h race barrier and was voted World Female Athlete of the Year by the World Athletics.
Thompson Herah after winning said, “I didn’t have the best execution but I had to dig for that one but I am still grateful to win my first Commonwealth Games, she continued by saying, I started in 2014 in the 4x100m. Then in 2018 in the 200 metres, I came fourth and now I upgraded to gold.”
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