Indian weightlifters lived up to the pre-event hype by delivering medals for India and badminton players added to the cheer on a fruitful opening day of the XXI Commonwealth Games, here. Mirabai Chanu, with her record-breaking feat, won gold while P. Gururaja claimed silver.
En route to her gold-medal winning performance, Chanu smashed the Games records in the 48kg category snatch, clean and jerk, and overall. It fetched her a thunderous applause from Australian fans who queued up to take her autograph after the medal ceremony. Chanu managed to lift 196kg (86kg+110kg) in a remarkable effort.
“I was not expecting to break records but I certainly wanted to break them when I came here. I can’t put in words, how it feels right now,” an exhausted but jubilant Chanu told PTI .
As it happened: Commonwealth Games, Day One
Earlier, Gururaja survived a few anxious moments after two failed attempts in clean and jerk to claim a silver medal. The 25-year-old son of a truck driver equalled his personal best of 249kg (111kg+138kg) to finish second in the event and ensured India woke up to the news of a medal on the very first day of the marquee event. He said, “After I failed the first two attempts, my coach reminded me how much my life depends on this. I remembered my family and my country.”
M. Raja (62kg) was the third weightlifter in contention on Thursday but he lost out to much superior competition and finished sixth overall with a total effort of 266kg (116kg+150kg).
Waltzing Saina
Besides weightlifters, the much-hyped shuttlers also made a winning start to their campaign, annihilating Sri Lanka and Pakistan 5-0 in the mixed-team event matches.
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Saina Nehwal brought quite a lot of aggression on court to dispatch her Sri Lankan opponent Madushika Beruelage in only 22 minutes. She was later in action against Pakistan as well and was her usual clinical self against Mahoor Shahzad; she completed a straight-games victory in 26 minutes to ensure that India had a winning day to celebrate.
On the squash court, Dipika Pallikal and Joshna Chinnappa, who would be defending their women’s doubles gold medal, made winning starts in their singles matches. While Dipika got the better of Trinidad and Tobago’s Charlotte Knaggs, Joshna sailed past Papua New Guinea’s Lynette Vai.
‘Hard’ loss
A big setback was a loss suffered by World No. 13 Saurav Ghosal. He fell to a 3-2 defeat to Jamaica’s Chris Binnie. Harinder Pal Sandhu also suffered a loss, while Vikram Malhotra won his opening match. After his defeat, Ghosal said, “It’s hard because this is the biggest thing for us squash players and I planned a lot over the last year and put in a lot of hard work. Obviously it hasn’t worked out and it’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life.”
He added, “It wasn’t the best match to play from the first point. It was not the way I was taught to play squash. I guess you have to find a way whatever circumstances you are in, but I couldn’t find that way to win.”
Hockey shocker
In the second major disappointment, after Ghosal’s loss, India’s women’s hockey team was defeated 3-2 by Wales in its lung-opener.
The Indians were not much of a force on the cycling track either, finishing sixth in the Women’s Team Sprint, which ruled them out of medal contention. The men’s team did even worse, finishing seventh in the competition.
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