Telangana athletes who made India proud at CWG 2022

HYDERABAD: The 2022 Commonwealth Games came to an end on Monday with India taking home 61 medals overall, including 22 gold, 16 silver and 23 bronze.

Six of the medalists from India's best ever haul at CWG are from Telangana. Of them, two won gold while two received silver and two others settled for bronze.

Nikhat Zareen, a world champion in her weight category, won the gold medal in the women's 50 kg flyweight division at the Birmingham Games. Mohammed Hussamuddin bagged a bronze in men's boxing event.

Both Nikhat Zareen and Mohammed Hussamuddin, are natives of Nizamabad. Their feat now puts the sleepy district on the world map of sports.

In Badminton, Gayatri Gopichand, daughter of Pullela Gopichand, won a bronze in the women's doubles and silver in the mixed team event at the 2022 CommonWealth Games.

Achanta Sharath Kamal and Sreeja Akula, two of India's top players in mixed doubles at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games, also notched up a historic gold in Table Tennis. While Sreeja Akula is a native of Hyderabad, Sharath is a Telugu settled in Chennai.

Besides these, B Sumeeth Reddy of Hyderabad won a silver medal in the Badminton mixed team event.

It has been a tough and arduous journey for Sumeeth to have reached here after having battled fears of lower-body paralysis in his teens. If his inclusion in the Indian team for the CommonWealth Games 2022 was itself a big achievement, the medal came as the icing on the cake for him.