CWG 2022, Day 2 Wrap: Mirabai Chanu Wins Gold as Weightlifters Clinch 4 Medals; Lovlina Borgohain Progresses

India’s star weightlifter Mirabai Chanu smashed Commonwealth Games (CWG) records aplenty, to give India their first gold medal on day two of competitions at Birmingham Birmingham 2022. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics silver medallist competing in the Women’s 49kg category, lifted a total of 201kgs including a personal best of 88kg in snatch, to win the contest by some margin. Roilya Ranaivosoa of Mauritania won silver with a total lift of 172kgs while Canada’s Hannah Kaminski won bronze with a total of 171kgs to her name. The Indian star’s overall lift of 201kgs is a new CWG record while her snatch effort was also a CWG as well as a Commonwealth record.

That was not the only good news from on a day India opened its medal count bagging one of every colour from the sport of Weightlifting.

It started with a heroic silver from Sanket Mahadev Sargar in the men’s 55kg class when, with an injured shoulder in the end, he went down to Malaysia’s Mohamad Aniq Bin Kasdan by just 1kg. Sanket lifted 113 in snatch and 135 in clean and jerk for a total lift to 248kgs. Bin Kasdan, gave away a six-kilogram advantage to Sanket in the snatch, but then lifted a superb CWG record 142kgs in clean and jerk, to secure Malaysia’s first gold from weightlifting on the day.

The bronze came India’s way from the men’s 61kg category when Gururaja Poojary lifted 269kgs overall to edge out Canada’s Youri Simrad by one in a nail-biting contest. Gururaja lifted 118kg in snatch and 151kg in clean and jerk. Aznil Bin Bidin Muhamad won Malaysia their day’s second weightlifting gold, lifting a total of 285kgs for a new CWG record. His efforts of 127 in snatch and 158 in clean and jerk were also CWG records. Morea Baru of Papua New Guinea won silver with an overall lift of 273kgs.

Bindyarani Devi won silver in the women’s 55kg category with the last lift of the night to bring India’s medal tally to four after the second day of competitions.

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In Table Tennis, Indian paddlers continued their smooth run in the group stages with facile victories in both the Women’s and Men’s Team competitions. The Women in Group 2 blanked Guyana 3-0 to notch up their second win and so did the Men in Group 3, overcoming Northern Ireland by the same margin. Later in the day though, defending champions India crashed out of the women’s table tennis team event in the Commonwealth Games after losing to Malaysia 3-2 in the quarterfinals.

India’s world number 15 squash star Saurav Ghosal had a positive start to his campaign with a fluent 3-0 win over Sri Lankan Shamil Wakeel. Joshna Chinappa outclassed Meagan Best of Barbados as the 18-time national champion Chinappa won in straight sets (11-8, 11-9, 12-10). Sunayna Sara Kuruvilla lost to Aifa Azman of Malaysia 7-11, 7-11, 7-11 as Anahat Singh and Abhay Singh crashed out.

The Indian mixed badminton team got convincing wins over Sri Lanka and Australia, having already booked their place in the quarter-finals.

India did however suffer a couple of setbacks with Sunayna Kuruvilla going down 0-3 to Aifa Azman of Malaysia in a round of 32 clash while Ramit Tandon gave a walkover to crash out of the competition.

Indian swimmer Srihari Nataraj finished 7th with a time of 54:31 in the Men’s 100m backstroke final!

Day two also saw the commencement of the Athletics events with the Men’s and Women’s Marathons starting the proceedings. India’s Nitendra Singh Rawat finished 12th in the Men’s Marathon clocking a time of 2:19:22 hrs.

Already through to the quarterfinals, defending champions India continued their rampaging run as they beat Australia in their final group A match of mixed team competition.

Lovlina Borgohain cruised to the 70kg quarterfinals of the women’s light middleweight category with an easy 5-0 win over Ariana Nicholson. Md. Husamuddin also won comfortably against Amzolele Dyeyi of South Africa by a unanimous 5-0 margin.  Sanjeet Kumar though lost to Alo Leau of Samoa 3-2 in a split decision in the men’s 92kg heavyweight round of 16.

Vandana Katariya scored a brace as the Indian women’s hockey team defeated Wales 3-1 to record its second successive win in Pool A.

India also had a few victories in Lawn Bowls on the day with the pair of Dinesh Kumar and Sunil Bahadur getting the better of Cook Islands 15-8 in Men’s Pairs Section C Group E match. This was their second victory of the competition.

In cycling India’s Mayuri Lute finished 20th and Triyasha Paul 23rd in the Women’s Sprint qualifiers while Meenakshi ended 15th in Women’s 3000m Individual Pursuit qualifiers. In the Men’s 4000m Individual Pursuit qualifiers Vishavjeet Singh was 18th while Dinesh Kumar finished in 19th spot. In the Men’s Keirin, David Beckham finished fourth in Heat-2 while Esow Alben was relegated in Heat-4. The last two named also finished second in the Repachages to bow out

Tania Choudhury continued to have a tough time in Women’s Singles Sectional Play in Lawn Bowls, suffering yet another loss, this time going down 10-21 to Wales’ Laura Daniels in a Group B match

There was not much luck for India in the Gymnastics arena as the trio of Pranati Nayak, Ruthuja Nataraj and Protistha Samanta finished fifth in Subdivision four of the Women’s Team event.

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