India bags one silver and a bronze in Deaflympics:

From: New Kerala, India - Jan 8, 2005

[Sports India]: New Delhi, Jan 8 : Gerlad Wilcox gave India its first medal in the 20th Deaflympics Games being held in Melbourne when he won the silver in the pole vault event.

The badminton team then added a bronze to the Indian tally today after Republic of Korea, which defeated them in the semifinals, thrashed Germany to bag the gold medal.

According to the rules of the event, the loser to the eventual champion wins the bronze medal without a play-off.

In the paul vault competition held last night, Wilcox managed to clear a height of 4.20 meters and finished behind Patrick Southern of USA (4.30 m), according to information received here today.

The bronze went to Hans-Kristjan Paukson of Estonia.

In the badminton team event, India failed to make it to the summit clash when it lost to Korea 4-1 in the semifinals.

Rohit Bhaker gave India a fine start when he beat Woo Sin 7-15 15-6 15-12 but it was then a downhill ride as they lost the remaining four rubbers in straight games.

Hwa Jeong levelled the scores for Korea beating Ranjini Ramanujam in the women's singles 11-3 11-6 and then the men's doubles pair of Woo and Bong Lee made it 2-1 when they got the better of Rajiv Bagga and Sandeep Dhillon 15-12 15-12.

Hwa and Yoen Park wrapped up the issue by thrashing Payel Ghosh and Joyashree Sarkar 15-0 15-1 in the women's doubles.

The scoreline was completed when Rajnisree Prem and Rohit went down to Bong and Park 7-15 1-15 in the final rubber.

Earlier, India, which topped Group B consisting Germany, New Zealand and Indonesia, thrashed Great Britain 4-1 to reach the last four. PTI

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