Liike Kibami with the other medal winners.
Best performance since 2007
Morung Express News
Dimapur | October 29
Nagaland won two more medals – a Gold and a Silver – in the ongoing 37th National Games in Goa, bringing the state's medal tally to three, and marking the best performance since 2007.
The first medal was Silver, earned by Liike Kibami in the Women’s Pencak Silat Tanding 55-60 kg category at Campal Open Ground, Panjim, on October 28. She lost to Yaikhom Devi of Manipur in the final.
Earlier, on October 27, Kibami, along with Hinokali and Avikali V Sheqi, ended over a decade-long medal drought at the National Games by securing Bronze in the Pencak Silat Regu event.
However, the most significant achievement was on Sunday when Nagaland’s Kitenlo Thono secured an emphatic 30-18 victory over Akash Deep of Punjab to win Gold in the 90-95 Kg category in Men’s Tanding (match). Piyush Shukla (Maharashtra) and Siraj Khan (Goa) were awarded Bronze medals.
Nagaland’s best performance at the National Games so far was its debut at the 2007 edition in Guwahati when the state secured 11 medals (1 Gold, 1 Silver, and 9 Bronze).
During the next edition in Ranchi, Jharkhand, in 2011, it won 2 Bronze medals. However, thereafter, Nagaland failed to win any medals in the 2015 and 2022 editions of the national event.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio took to X, formerly Twitter, to congratulate the two athletes and stated that it was a ‘historic achievement’ for the state.
According to the Indian Pencak Silat Federation website, Pencak Silat (‘Silat’) is the generic term for the indigenous martial arts of the Indonesian/Malay archipelago, which includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei. It translates to "fighting by many techniques of self-defense" and has four main components: mental spirit, art & culture, self-defense, and sport.
The sport's artistic categories are: combative Tanding, where two Pesilat from different teams compete in a match and non-combative -Tunggal (Single competitor); Ganda (Double, two in a team); Regu (Triple, Three in a team); and Solo Creative (Single Person).
