India started their medal campaign at the ongoing Commonwealth Games at Gold Coast, Australia with a Silver Medal in Men’s 56kg weightlifting. This was the very first event India have participated in at the ongoing edition of the Commonwealth Games.
Earlier, P Gururaja won silver in the Men’s 56kg weightlifting event as he lifted 138kg in his third attempt in the clean and jerk to end with a total lift of 249kg. The 28 year old had lifted 111kg in the snatch. In way to the silver medal, he also achieved his personal best at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and earned India their first medal on the opening day of the current edition.
Gold medal of this event went to Malaysia’s Muhammad Izhar Ahmad (total lift of 261kg – A Commonwealth Games record) and Bronze went to Sri Lanka’s Chaturanga Lakmal (248kg).
Prior to his medal appearance at the Commonwealth Games, today, Gururaja has won a Commonwealth Championships bronze in Australia (2017), and a Commonwealth senior weightlifting championship gold with a personal best of 249kg (108+141) in Penang (2016) and a South Asian Games gold in India.
India have sent a very strong contingent comprising 200-plus athletes across all sports India is appearing at. The Indian Contingent at Gold Coast includes a strong 16 member Weightlifting team to Gold Coast. The team composition is below:
Men: P Gururaja, Muthupandi Raja, Deepak Lather, Sathish Sivalingam, Ragala Venkat Rahul, Vikas Thakur, Pardeep Singh, Gurdeep Singh
Women: Saikhom Mirabai Chanu, Kumukcham Sanjita Chanu, Saraswati Rout, Vandna Gupta, Punam Yadav, Seema, Lalchhanhimi & Purnima Pandey.