A smiling Mirabai Chanu made her towering presence felt with a record-smashing show while Sanket Sargar tasted big-stage success after years of toil as India's weightlifters continued to produce sparkling performances at the Commonwealth Games, winning medals of all three hues, in Birmingham, on Saturday.
Olympic silver medallist Mirabai was expected to win a gold medal on the second day of the competition, and she did it with remarkable ease, shattering four records in a power-packed performance.
Literally owning the stage, Mirabai outshone the field by lifting 201kg (88kg+113kg), which was a humongous 29kg more than second-placed Marie Hanitra Roilya Ranaivosoa's 172kg (76kg+96kg) from Mauritius, while Canada's Hannah Kaminski was behind by another one kilogram (74kg+97kg).
While others began in the range of 60s, Mirabai straightaway lifted 86kg in her first attempt to pull away from the field, and matched her personal best of 88kg in the second attempt. She went for a record-breaking 90kg, but could not succeed.
In clean and jerk, she began by lifting 109kg and that successful attempt sealed her and India's first gold medal at the Games. She returned for a successful 113kg lift, but could not complete the 115kg in her final try.
Here's how India's athletes fared on Day 2 at the 2022 Commonwealth Games:
Badminton:
Defending champions India continued their rampaging run, beating Australia in their last Group A match of mixed team competition.
Earlier in the day, they outclassed Sri Lanka 5-0 in their second Group A match and sealed a quarter-final spot with one tie to spare in the league stage.
Boxing:
Lovlina Borgohain advanced to the women's light-middleweight quarter-finals (70kg) with a unanimous verdict over New Zealand's Araine Nicholson in the first round.
Heavyweight Sanjeet lost to Somoa's Ato Leau Plodzicki-Faoagali via a split decision in the 92kg category.
Mohammad Hussamuddin cruised into the pre-quarterfinals of the men's featherweight (57kg), defeating Amzolele Dyeyi of South Africa 5-0.
Hassamuddin, a bronze medallist in the last CWG in 2018, used his quick hands and nimble footwork to overpower his rival. The Indian kept his shape from the onset and didn't allow his opponent to take the initiative in any of the three rounds.
Hassamuddin will face Md Salim Hossain of Bangladesh in the next round for a place in the quarter-finals.
Hockey:
India's women's team beat Wales 3-1 for their second victory in Pool A.
Vandana Katariya scored twice while Gurjit Kaur accounted for the other goal.
Table Tennis:
Defending champions India were knocked out by Malaysia 2-3 in the quarter-finals of the women's Team event.
Locked 2-2 after four ties, Reeth Tennison (WR 111) lost the deciding singles 2-3 (0-12, 11-8, 6-11, 11-9, 11-9) to lowly-ranked Malaysian paddler Ho Ying.
The women's team, led by Manika Batra, outclassed Guyana 3-0 in a Group 2 match while the men's side also thrashed Northern Ireland by an identical margin in a Group 3 game.
Athletics:
Nitendra Singh Rawat finished 12th in the men's marathon. The 35-year-old Rawat clocked 2 hours 19 minutes and 22 seconds in the race won by Uganda's Victor Kiplangat (2:10:55).
Tanzania's Alphonce Felix Simbu (2:12:29) and Kenya's Michael Mugo Githae (2:13:16) took the silver and bronze respectively.
Rawat has a personal best of 2:16:05, which he had clocked at the New Delhi Marathon in March. He was eight minutes 27 seconds behind the gold winner.
Squash:
Joshna Chinappa sailed into the pre-quarter-finals with 3-0 win in the second round. Joshna had a first round bye.
Sunayna Kuruvilla lost in the second round to Aifa Azman.
Saurav Ghosal proceeded to the pre-quarter-finals with 3-0 win in the second round.
Swimming:
Srihari Nataraj finished seventh in the men's 100m backstroke, clocking 54.31 seconds.
Weightlifting:
Mirabai Chanu was a class above the 49kg field as she defended her Commonwealth Games title to give India the first gold medal of the Games.
The Olympic silver medallist aggregated 201kg (88kg + 113kg ) to stamp her authority in the competition and achieve a Commonwealth Games record in the process.
Young Sanket Sargar won a silver in the men's 55kg category.
The 21-year-old lifted 248kg (113kg+135kg) to finish a kilogram behind Malaysia's Mohamad Aniq, who smashed the Games record in clean and jerk, lifting 249kg (107kg+142kg) to win the gold.
Later Gururaja Poojary, the silver medallist at Gold Coast 2018 Games, finished third in the 61kg to clinch India's first-ever CWG medal in the weight category. It was a successful switch to an Olympic weight category as Gururaja had competed in the 56kg in Australia.
He lifted 151kg in his final clean and jerk attempt to seal the bronze with a total lift of 269kg, edging out Canada's Youri Simard (119kg).
Bindyarani Devi then produced a tremendous effort to secure a silver in the women's 55kg category, India's fourth weightlifting medal.
The 23-year-old created a Games record by lifting 116kg in the clean and jerk after a personal best of 86kg in the snatch section, totaling 202kg.
