Injured weightlifter Sanket Mahadev Sargar settles for silver after playing safe in bid to open Commonwealth Games medals count; Gururaja Poojary wins bronze in 61kg event
Sanket Mahadev Sargar reacts as he competes in the 55kg weightlifting event at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham on Saturday. Pics/PTI
Sanket Mahadev Sargar brought in India’s first silver medal of the Commonwealth Games 2022 in a competition, where he should have been the gold medal favourite. Though Sargar seemed to have injured himself during the clean & jerk segment of the contest, it could have been a recurrence of an old problem.
Sargar totalled 248kg with 113kg in snatch and 135kg in clean & jerk, while the gold medal was claimed by Malaysian Mohammed Aniq Bin Kasdan (107 kg plus 142 kg). Sri Lanka’s Dilanka Kumara Yodage with 225 kg (105 kg plus 120kg) won bronze.
Gururaj Poojary
A little later India added a bronze in 61kg category where Gururaja Poojary finished third behind Malaysia’s Muhamad Aznil Bin Bidin totalled a Games record of 285kg (127kg snatch plus 158kg C&J) and Papua New Guinea’s Baru Morea was second with 273 kg (121kg plus 152kg).
Gururaja aggregated 269kg (118kg plus 151kg) as he pipped Canadian Simard Youri 268kg (119kg plus 149 kg).
Yet, it is not clear whether Sanket, who last year failed all three clean & jerk attempts at the World Championship which ran concurrently with the Commonwealth Championship, had thoughts of injuring himself again.
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Near glory
Sanket, a 21-year-old from Sangli, who hit the headlines at the Khelo India Games in 2020, had built up a handy six kilo lead with a superb effort. From 107kg in is first snatch effort, he progressed to 111 and finally 113. Bin Kasdan’s best was 107kg. But, when it came to clean & jerk, Sargar went for a safe weight at 135kg and lifted it comfortably. That meant he was in the run for a medal and it could have even been a gold.
It seemed surprising that he asked for 139kg for his second lift, as compared to his personal best of 143kg achieved in Singapore this February. Here at the NEC Hall in Birmingham, while going for 139 kg, he seemed to have hurt himself. He failed a second time when he attempted more with hope than conviction. His best stayed at 135kg and the total was 248.
Bin Kasdan after 138 for his first lift, asked for 142 to overhaul Sargar. The Malaysian failed once but lifted it a second time and with it came the gold with his total of 249kg.
Past problems
Sanket had faced problems in clean and jerk in the past—he had no lifts in 2021 Commonwealth Championships in Tashkent when the championship was held within that year’s World Championships.
Sargar, however, redeemed himself at the Singapore International to secure his entry to Birmingham with a gold medal in the competition this year with lifts of 113kg and 143kg in Clean and Jerk. He totalled 256kg in Singapore, which would have easily fetched him a gold here.
