Indian lifters Sukhan Dey, Sonia Chanu fail to live up to high hopes, settle for silver.
The tension in the air was so thick that one could almost touch it. India’s Sukhen Dey needed to successfully lift 146kg in his final attempt to create the upset of Day One and dethrone Malaysia’s defending champion Amirul Hamizan Ibrahim in the men’s 56kg category.
But it wasn’t to be the case. The youngster from Army Sports Institute had to settle for silver after slipping in his final lift, losing the competition for gold medal to his Malaysian counterpart at the weightlifting arena inside the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here on Monday.
The weightlifters lived up to the expectations as each Indian participating in this event on Monday won a medal. VS Rao won the bronze, again, giving both Dey and Ibrahim a run for their money.
“I knew it was always going to be tough. Ibrahim is a tough guy to compete against. But I am happy with my performance today,” Dey said. But even as the men surpassed the expectations, woman lifter Sonia Chanu was upset by Nigeria’s Augustina Nkem Nwaokolo for the gold medal.
Barely 10 minutes after winning India’s first medal at the XIX Commonwealth Games, Sonia Chanu folded her hands, bowed her head and apologised for winning the silver medal in the women’s 48kg weightlifting on Monday.
On any other day and event, winning silver and a bronze medal would have been a decent, if not perfect, start for India. May be it was pure hard luck, in the case of Dey or in Sonia’s case a clear case of high expectations set by coach Harnam Singh.
Even before the Indian weightlifting squad for the CWG was announced, Harnam had confidently declared that Sonia would win the gold medal in her category (48kgs).
Harnam, Chanu and the few hundreds gathered at the weightlifting arena here were shocked by the stupendous effort of the 17-year-old Nigerian Augustina. She not only won the Games’ first gold medal but she did it in supreme style, eclipsing Kunjarani Devi’s record with her total score of 175 (Snatch: 77, Clean & Jerk: 98).
“I am happy. I have lifted 100kgs before so I knew I could win today,” said Augustina, the underdog in this event.
Sonia, though, was inconsolable despite her podium finish. “It’s pure bad luck. I have done everything right.
My warm-ups went well. I did the first snatch well and was very confident. I don’t know what went wrong all of a sudden,” she said, continuing, “I am sorry. I have disappointed my country, my coach and my federation — who have fought all odds to ensure that we participate in the CWG.”
Harnam was equally apologetic. “I am very sad today. But I won’t blame her. Every sportsperson has a bad day. Sadly for Sonia, it was today. We are not happy with the silver. I want to apologise to the whole country. We targeted gold and silver in this event but ended up with a silver and bronze,” he said.
While Sonia was shattered by her performance, her compatriot Sandhya Rani confessed she exceeded her own expectations after a dismal start. “I am happy with my performance. I didn’t begin well so I am happy with the way I came back and won the bronze,” Sandhya said.
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