Commonwealth Games 2018: Mirabai Chanu's gold, Gururaja Poojary's silver highlight opening day for India

A Railway woman and an Air Force aircraftsman gave a wonderful start to India’s campaign in the 21st Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast on Thursday. World Champion Mirabai Chanu’s 48kg class gold and Gururaja Poojary’s silver in the 56kg event in the weightlifting arena were on the expected lines but sparked waves of cheer around the contingent and the country. Not to be left behind, a Chief Petty Officer of the Indian Navy Rakesh Patra demonstrated that he had not raised a ruckus around the gymnastics team selection without justification by qualifying for the roman rings final while a teenage-student Srihari Nataraj warmed the cockles of many a heart by rewriting his own National 100m backstroke record twice. [caption id=“attachment_4420053” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] India’s Mirabai Chanu lifted 196 kg to win the gold on Thursday. Twitter/ @GC2018[/caption] As World Champion, the 23-year-old Mirabai Chanu from Manipur was expected to dominate her event. And she delivered a thoroughly professional performance, eclipsing Games and Commonwealth records each time she walked up to the stage. The intensity of her effort was such that even if she was in a league of her own, she ensured that she would improve on her best. Both in snatch, where she lifted 80kg, 84kg and 86kg in each of her attempts, and in clean and jerk, where she lifted 103kg, 107kh and 110kg, she entered the fray only after the 10 other competitors had completed their lifts. And when Canada’s Amanda Braddock came up with a no-mark in clean and jerk variant, Mirabai Chanu did not bat an eyelid. Keeping her mind in the present — and not letting it drift back to the Olympic Games in Rio where she had to face a similar predicament — the 23-year-old went about her task with admirable calm. Once she had completed the total lift of 196kg, she broke into a wide smile. She had bottled up her emotion and allowed it surface, basking in it till the National Anthem rent the arena. Just an hour or so earlier, Gururaja Poojary, the 25-year-old aircraftsman with the Indian Air Force, flirted with disaster but kept his nerve to secure silver medal in the 56kg class. He faced failure twice with the barbell was loaded at 138kg for clean and jerk variant but came back to succeed in his third attempt to finish with a total of 249kg. For months, he and the coaching staff knew that Gururaja Poojary would not be able to challenge Malaysian Muhammad Azroy Hazalwafie Izhar Ahmad for gold and prepared to battle with Sri Lanka’s Chaturanga Lakmal Jayasooriya. They had calculated 249kg as the total with which to achieve this silver medal. And 249kg it was, one kilo more than the Lankan managed. The other weightlifter in the fray, 18-year-old Muthupandi Raja finished sixth in the 62kg category despite logging a personal best of 266kg, a six kg improvement on the total he secured in winning the youth and junior divisions in the Commonwealth Championship last year. He lifted 116kg in snatch and managed 150kg in clean and jerk variation. Talking of teenagers, Srihari Nataraj lowered the national record in 100m backstroke twice but his 56.65-second effort in the semifinal was not good enough for him to be in the running for a slot in the final. Swimming in a heat that included former double world champion Mitch Larkin (Australia), he gained experience that can hold him in good stead in the Youth Olympics this year. Srihari had clocked 56.71 seconds in the heats earlier in the day to set a new national record, improving on his times of 56.90 in the Khelo India School Games in Delhi earlier this year and 56.99 in the Asian Age-Group Championships in Tashkent last year. The formidable badminton squad, led by Kidambi Srikanth and Saina Nehwal, trounced Sri Lanka and Pakistan 5-0 . It was heartening to see Saina Nehwal’s intensity and purpose on display, clearly pushing aside the last vestiges of a needless controversy that she sparked on arrival at the Games Village. The Indian women’s table tennis team whipped Sri Lanka 3-0 without dropping a game while the men’s squad posted a facile victory by a similar margin over Trinidad and Tobago, Anthony Amalraj dropping a game to Dexter St. Louis. Later, the women’s team beat Wales 3-1 while the men defeated Northern Ireland 3-0. India’s women’s squash stars Joshna Chinappa and Dipika Pallikal progressed to the round of 16 with straight games victories while 28-year-old Vikram Malhotra scored two victories to get into the round of 16 in the men’s draw. Chandigarh’s Harinder Pal Sandhu’s run came to an end in the round of 32 when he lost to Malaysia’s Ivan Yuen. The larger heartbreak on the squash court came when Saurav Ghoshal was sent packing from the second round. Having drawn a bye in the first round, he held a game ball against Jamaican Chris Binnie but lost in five games. He was gutted and tweeted an apology after the 11-5, 11-7, 8-11, 9-11, 10-12 verdict. Another Indian athlete who apologised on Twitter was swimmer Virdhawal Khade. The freestyler was far from his best in the 50m sprint, clocking 24.50 seconds in the semifinals, a shade faster than the 24.52 he times in the first round heats. Just for the record, the 26-year-old Maharashtra Government officer had clocked his best time of 22.55 seconds back in 2009. There was great disappointment for the manner in which the India women’s hockey conceded goals and did not make the most of the 16 penalty corners that it forced against Wales. The 2-3 defeat will take some bouncing back from. Clearly, the defence needs to stop making needless errors and the attack has to find a way beyond forcing set pieces to scoring goals. Ashish Kumar, a path-breaker in 2010 Games, seemed a disillusioned gymnast on Thursday, finishing 25th among 27 competitors in the all-around competition but two men who had forced their way into the team, thanks to the intervention of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), did themselves a huge favour by qualifying for a final each. Yogeshwar Singh made it as the last qualifier in the individual all-around competition. Rakesh Kumar entered the roman rings title round with a score of 13.950 points and was fifth among eight qualifiers behind two Englishmen and two Canadians. If he can up his game a shade, he could well be in medal reckoning, justifying the campaign he led against the team that had been picked by a selection committee nominated by the Indian Olympic Association.