Commonwealth Games 2018: Weightlifters Sathish Kumar Sivalingam, Venkat Rahul Ragala continue India's golden harvest

The Indian weightlifting coaching staff can beam with pride after Sathish Kumar Sivalingam (77kg class) and Venkat Rahul Ragala (85kg class) claimed gold medals to double India’s tally to four after three days in the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast. Each of India’s six medals has come from the weightlifting arena, with promise of a few more. And the coaches led by Vijay Sharma can take a bow. Of course, the weightlifting competition is only half done with seven more lifters waiting to make their presence felt. Punam Yadav, Seema and Vikas Thakur will be hoping to sustain the good run. But with six medals from nine events, the lifters have been able to place India among the top four in the medals charts so far. [caption id=“attachment_4422453” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Weightlifter Sathish Kumar Sivalingam won gold in the 77kg category. PTI[/caption] Sathish’s second gold in as many Commonweath Games could well be a medical marvel and perhaps a result of some sound workload management by the coaches. Without a physio or a masseur among the support staff of five, the 16 lifters have faced some difficulty in the run up to and during the Games, perhaps none more than Sivalingam. There was evidence of his grit and determination — and backroom support — when he came up to do the lifts. He would not risk completing a squat, perhaps for fear of causing more damage to an injured muscle. It was perhaps the reason why he and his coaches did not push him to snatch more than 144kg and 173kg in clean and jerk for a total of 317kg, well below his personal bests of 152kg, 187kg and 339kg respectively. There was similar smart decision-making when Venkat Rahul dealt with the challenge offered by Samoa’s Don Opeloge. The 21-year-old from Stuartpuram in Andhra Pradesh may have been surprised by how much the Samoan had improved in snatch, equaling his best effort of 151kg on Saturday, but played the pressure game admirably to secure the nation’s fourth gold and sixth medal. To be sure, over the past few years, the Indian Weightlifting Federation has made conscious efforts to keep the sport clean and has managed to unearth and groom the next generation of lifters, backing Indian coaches to run the show and draft its comeback trail. India had to face the ignominy of having been suspended by the International Weightlifting Federation for dope-related offences. One of the federation’s better decisions perhaps was to send the team to Melbourne nearly a month ahead of the Commonwealth Games. On the contrary, one of the worse decisions was to nominate a physio to join the team as late as on 23 March,  and it could have boomeranged big time on the squad, not the least in the case of Sivalingam. The theme of contrasts was present even on the hockey pitch where the Indian team played the match in two strikingly different parts. If in the first half, it scored two goals and appeared in great control of the proceedings, it lost its grip in the third and fourth quarters, even to the point of letting Pakistan find an equaliser in the dying moments of the match. The 17-year-old backstroke ace, Srihari Nataraj, continued his journey as one of India’s success stories of the Games despite not having a medal to show to a nation that is passionately driven by a hunger for medals, unmindful of the quality or intensity of competition in the event. He secured his third successive national record, this time in the 50m sprint. His time of 26.47 seconds in the heats earned him a place in the semifinal. A poor start meant that he was unable to lower his personal best for the first time in four races, but he is the first reserve for the final. Sajan Prakash had that luck, making it to the 200m butterfly final after a 1:58.57 national record effort in finishing fifth in his heats. England’s Guy James pulled out ahead of the final and that let the 24-year-old from Thodupuzha in Kerala enjoy the experience of swimming in the final of a world class event. Another reserve who gained such experience was Aruna Budda Reddy, the 22-year-old gymnast. Having suffered an emotional blow after losing her coach Brij Kishore to cancer in Hyderabad, she found herself in the women’s individual all-around final when Scotland’s Cara Kennedy withdrew. A good vault worth 13.650 points lifted her from the bottom of the heap to 14th with 44.400 points, a couple of notches ahead of her team-mate Pranati Das. Yogeshwar Singh, the 20-year-old from Ambala, finished 14th in the men’s individual all-around final with a total of 75.600 points. He also had a good score on the vault (14.100) but had to settle for some satisfaction that he had improved his score of 72.815 points he secured in the World Championships in Montreal last year. India’s challenge in squash singles came to an end when Joshna Chinappa lost her quarterfinal contest to New Zealand’s Joelle King. The badminton team cruised to the semifinals as did the men and women’s table tennis teams. India’s men’s paddlers will meet Singapore in the semifinals, defeating Malaysia 3-1, while the women’s team will face England in the last four after defeating Malaysia 3-0. The shuttlers beat Mauritius 3-0, not dropping a game and not needing Saina Nehwal to take court. The top-seeded team will meet Singapore, seeded fourth, in the semifinals while No. 2 Malaysia will take on the third-ranked England in the other semifinal. India’s medals have come in a trickle of two every day thus far, courtesy the weightlifting team. But after a day on which the twin medals were both gold, one can expect them to flow a bit more freely now. The 27-member shooting contingent is expected to take over the task of securing a lot of medals when it takes the stage from Sunday. For three days now, millions of Indians have enjoyed the strains of the national anthem around breakfast time. With a bit of luck and much steel, the 20km race walking squad of KT Irfan and Manish Kumar (men) and Soumya Baby and Khushbir Kaur (women) might bring some more good news on Sunday.