Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: India’s Commonwealth Games campaign found its rhythm on Sunday. Rishikanta Singh Chanambam took silver in the men’s 60kg weightlifting with a total of 264 kg, finishing behind Malaysia’s Mohamad Aniq Bin Kasdan, and did it with a flourish — a snatch of 121 kg that set a new Commonwealth Games record. Hours later, on the same platform, the Olympic medallist Mirabai Chanu opened the women’s 48kg final by rewriting the Commonwealth snatch record herself, clearing 85 kg after an early miss, and turning India’s afternoon in the weightlifting hall into one of its brightest sessions of the Games so far.
The account had been opened on Friday by para powerlifter Jhandu Kumar, whose bronze in the men’s heavyweight event — a 190 kg lift on his second attempt — gave India its first medal of these Games and one of its most moving stories. The 28-year-old, a vegetable vendor’s son who once drove an auto-rickshaw and sold that very vehicle in 2023 to fund a trip to the national championships, set the tone for a campaign that has drawn as much on grit as on form. By Sunday evening that opening bronze had been joined on the table by hard-won points across weightlifting, gymnastics and the pool.
A multi-sport Sunday: With Tapan Mohanty in the men’s artistic gymnastics all-around final, India’s Day-4 spread ran alongside the weightlifting hall — where Rishikanta Singh took 60kg silver with a Games snatch record and Mirabai Chanu set a Commonwealth snatch mark of 85 kg.
Records are set on the bar, but they are built in small-town gyms and long bus journeys. Every mark rewritten in Glasgow is a receipt for years of unglamorous work back home.
At a Glance
• Silver: Rishikanta Singh, men’s 60kg weightlifting, 264 kg total — Games snatch record 121 kg
• Record: Mirabai Chanu, Commonwealth snatch mark of 85 kg in the women’s 48kg final
• First medal: Jhandu Kumar, bronze, men’s heavyweight para powerlifting (190 kg)
• Tonight: an India–Pakistan boxing tie — Jadumani Singh in the men’s 55kg
There is a familiar rivalry still to come as the day runs late. Boxer Jadumani Singh Mandengbam, who opened his campaign with a commanding 5-0 win, faces Pakistan’s Sumama Rehman in the men’s 55kg — the kind of India–Pakistan tie that fills arenas and living rooms alike. Elsewhere on Sunday, gymnast Tapan Mohanty competed in the men’s artistic all-around final and India’s swimmers pushed for relay places, widening the base of a campaign that is no longer resting on a single result.
The constructive read is about the pipeline rather than the tally. That India’s first medal came from para sport, and that its weightlifters are rewriting records rather than merely reaching finals, reflects a decade of steadier funding, coaching and talent identification reaching further into the country. The way forward is to make Jhandu Kumar’s story less exceptional — so that reaching a national championship never again requires selling a family’s means of earning — and to keep investing in the small-town gyms and travel support that turn a promising lift into a podium in Glasgow.
