Commonwealth Games 2014: Lifter Sanjita Chanu Bags India's First Gold, Two Silver Medals for Judokas

India launched their campaign in the 20th Commonwealth Games in impressive fashion with weightlifter K Sanjita Chanu stealing the limelight by winning the country its first gold medal while the judokas added two silver on the opening day of competitions here on Thursday.

It was a display of overwhelming domination in weightlifting by the Indians as S Mirabai Chanu bagged the silver medal to make it a one-two for last edition's hosts.

Judokas Navjot Chana and Shushila Likmabam had to be contend with a silver medal each after they failed to clear the final hurdle in the men's 60kg and women's 48kg events, respectively.

The table tennis players, shuttlers and squash players also had easy outings on the first day.

In women's 48kg weightlifting, Sanjita won with a total lift of 173kg (77+96), while Mirabai grabbed the silver with a cumulative effort of 170 (75+95) in the absence of other strong competitors. Nigeria's Nkechi Opara was a distant third with 162 (70+92). (Highlights from CWG Day 1)

There was a bronze medal for another judoka Kalpana Thoudam, who won on the basis of conceding lesser penalty points against Christianne Legentil of Mauritius. Manjeet Nandal, though, returned empty-handed after losing his bronze-medal bout.

In the men's 60kg event, Chana, a 2010 Commonwealth Championships gold medallist, lost to Ashley McKenzie of England in the final. The Indian lost on the basis of penalty points (shido). Chana was handed three penalty points as against one by the Englishman. Both earned the same number of wazari points.

Shushila (women's 48kg) showed tremendous form en route to the final round by knocking out her rivals on Ippon verdicts. She, however, was no match to Scotland's Kimberly Renicks in the final. The local judoka, egged on by her home fans, knocked down the Indian in the third minute of the final round bout with an Ippon (knock-out) verdict.

Lifter Sanjita's total of 173kg missed the Games record, held in the name of 2010 CWG gold winner Augustina Nkem Nwaokolo (175kg effort), by two kilograms. Sanjita's 77kg effort in snatch, however, equalled Nwaokolo's CWG record.

The contest was all but over at the halfway snatch stage with 20-year-old Sanjita and 19-year-old Mirabai lifting 77kg and 75kg.

It was basically a contest between the two Manipuri lifters in an event which India had dominated for long in the Commonwealth Games from the days of Kunjarani Devi. Kunjarani, now a women's coach, was beside the two state mates on the platform, egging Sanjita and Mirabai in her vernacular language. India had won a silver and bronze in this category in 2010.

The clean and jerk contest went on almost similar lines with Sanjita and Mirabai taking the bar and the bell after most of their opponents had exhausted their attempts below the 90kg entry weight of the two Indians.

There was a bit of drama at the end as Mirabai thought she had won the gold after her lift of 98kg in clean and jerk which would have put her on same total with Sanjita. In that case she would have won the yellow metal on lesser body weight.

But the judges ruled Mirabai's attempt as no-lift, apparently on the ground that her right arms were not perfectly in the right position during the lift.

Sanjita was satisfied with her performance.

"I'm so happy to claim India's first medal at the Games. I don't feel like eating anything," Sanjita said.

"The preparation had been good and we were sure that we would get two medals. I am all the more happy that I have won a gold and Mirabai a silver," she added.

In women's 48kg, Manipuri judoka Shushila began her campaign by thrashing M Medza Effa of Cameroon in just one minute 41 seconds before knocking out A Meyer of Australia in similar fashion in the quarterfinals. She then made it to the final after another thrashing, of her semifinal opponent, C Rayner, also of Australia, in an Ippon verdict in the third minute.

Chana had faced a tough challenge from top-ranked Australian judoka Tom Pappas in the first round before winning on the basis of more yukos at the end of the five-minute bout though both of them got a penalty point each.

Navjot then knocked (Ippon) out B Dodge of Wales in the quarterfinals and went on to thrash D Le Grange of South Africa in another Ippon (knockout) result in the second minute of the semifinal bout. 

While the swimmers and cyclists failed to make much of an impact, it turned out to be a relatively sweat-free day for the table tennis players, shuttlers and squash players as they trounced their first round opponents. The men table tennis players, later in the day, saw off their second round opponents Northern Ireland 3-0, with A Sharath Kamal and Soumyajit Ghosh convincingly winning their singles contests, respectively.

In badminton, India spanked minnows Ghana 5-0 in a Group B match of the mixed team event.

India hardly broke any sweat as Parupalli Kashyap started the proceeding, thrashing Daniel Sam 21-6 21-16 in a 27-minute men's singles match to put his team in the driver's seat right from the start.

World Championship bronze medallist PV Sindhu then taught Stella Amasah a lesson or two in badminton with a 21-7 21-5 victory in the women's singles competition to give India a 2-0 lead.

Men's doubles pair of Akshay Dewalkar and Pranaav Chopra thrashed Emmanuel Donkor and Abraham Ayittey 21-7 21-11 in just 22 minutes to make it 3-0 in India's favour.

Commonwealth Games gold medallist pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa then took another 17 minutes to brush aside Evelyn Botwe and Diana Archer as India continued their rampaging run.

Finally, PC Thulasi and Kidambi Srikanth -- both singles players -- paired up and trounced another makeshift combination of Sam and Amasah 21-5 21-9 in a mixed doubles match to put an end to Ghana's misery at the Emirates Arena.

Indian men and women's table tennis team made a comfortable start by defeating Vanuatu and Barbados respectively at the Scotstoun Sports Campus.

The women's team, surprise silver medallists in Delhi four years ago, blanked Barbados 3-0 courtesy a clinical performance by Shamini Kumaresan, Manika Batra and Madhurika Patkar.

India's top player Sharath Kamal was rested for men's team opener against Vanuatu.

Later in the day, in weightlifting, the clean and jerk contest went on almost similar lines with Sanjita and Mirabai taking the bar and the bell after most of their opponents had exhausted their attempts below the 90kg entry weight of the two Indians.