Opening India’s medal account on the first competition day of the 21st commonwealth games, weightlifter P Gururaja struck silver in the men’s 56kg category on Thursday.
He also equaled his personal best of 249kg and finished second getting silver for India while the gold went to Malaysia’s three-time Commonwealth Championships medallist Muhammad Izhar Ahmed (117+144) who broke the Games record to snatch and overall lift and win the gold
Gururaja failed in his first two attempts before finally being able to deliver a good lift off his last chance to enter the top half of the table. Gururaja cam third after snatch, pulling off a best of 111kg in his third attempt.
Ahmed broke the overall Commonwealth games record which was in the name of Ibrahim and bettered his compatriot Hamizan Amirul Ibrahim’s snatch record of 116kg, created in 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games.
Sri Lanka’s Lakmal Chaturanga came third.
Gururaja is a low ranking Air Force employee and his life is a story of struggle, toil, hard work and a little bit of grace and luck. Just like other sportsmen he had to beat the red tape and the complicated system with low funding to become capable of winning a medal.
He is a son of a truck driver he was very keen on weightlifting from the very beginning and his dream came true when he was spotted by a watchful coach who saw potential and talent in Gururaja.
India is expecting many more medals in this year’s Commonwealth Games, but that will only be possible once the sports infrastructure is improved and funding is allocated for lesser known and followed sports in India like weightlifting and swimming.
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