``It was a very special moment for me. To stand on the medal stand and see the Indian flag flying high was a deeply satisfying experience,'' said Aparna Popat, a silver medallist at the Junior World Championship in 1996. ``Though the World silver medal was memorable, it came a long time ago and I matured as a player since then and the Commonwealth silver is something more,'' she said.

Aparna bagged a silver in the individual event besides leading the Indian women to a bronze medal in the team events. Gopichand, who had just six weeks of training prior to the last Games of the millenium, bagged a bronze in the individual event and guided the men's team to commending victories over fancied teams culminating in a silver medal.

Recovering from an injury, Gopichand managed to squeeze just over a month's training for the event, but did extremely well winning all the matches in the team event. ``It's especially satisfying and I am proud to get a medal for the country. It's different from other competitions because it's a great feeling to see your medal add up to the country's tally next morning,'' Gopi said.

Prakash Padukone, who provided the first gold medal for the country in the Commonwealth Games in 1978, commended the performance of the team. ``Considering that medals are coming after a gap of 16 years it is a very good achievement. Our teams did extremely well in the team events. The victories of the doubles team in the league phase were not expected and the gritty show did pave the way for a medal in both the sections,'' he said. ``The tourney was conducted over a period of 11 days and did take a toll on the players. But the way they remained focussed was commendable,'' the former champion said.

PVV Lakshmi, Neelima Choudhary, Ch Deepti, Jaseel Ismail, Markose Bristow and George Thomas are the other players, besides manager and non-playing captain Padukone and coach SM Arif, who arrived here on last night. Other players Manjusha Kanwar, Nikhil Kanetkar and Abhinshyam Gupta went directly to Delhi.