Assam women’s badminton team pockets first gold medal of 37th National Games, Karnataka triumphs in men’s final Goa, October 21st, 2023: Assam bagged the first gold medal of the 37th National Games when their women’s badminton team blanked Maharashtra 3-0 in the finals on Saturday at the Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee stadium here. Karnataka bagged the men’s team gold with a 3-1 victory over Maharashtra. Assam’s Ashmita Chaliha and Isharani Baruah proved too good for the entire Maharashtra team as they won their respective singles matches and then teamed up to upset former junior national champions Ritika Thaker and Simran Singhi to wrap up the gold medal. Ashmita, who was also part of India’s Asian Games contingent, began Assam’s march towards the top of the podium with a convincing 21-16, 21-11 victory over Purva Barve. Maharashtra knew that they would be favourites for the gold medal if they could win one of the first three rubbers. And those hopes would have been raised when Aalisha Naik bagged the first game against Isharani, dropping just nine points. But Isharani came back stronger in the second game, not allowing her opponent to play the deceptive drops and began controlling the rallies better. She sailed through the second game and opened up a 11-2 lead in the third before Aalisha found a way to score some points.