Gururaja Poojary wins India’s 2nd weightlifting medal at Commonwealth Games 2022, clinches bronze in men’s 61kg final

Gururaja Poojary made it two out of two for India in weightlifting as he won a bronze medal in the men’s 61kg final at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022 on Saturday.

Poojary successfully pulled off a combined lift of 269kg, (118kg in snatch and 151kg in clean and jerk) to ensure India’s second medal of the Games. Shortly after fellow weightlifter Sanket Mahadev Sargar opened India’s medal account at the CWG 2022 clinching a silver, Poojary added to India’s stunning show at CWG weightlifting events increasing its medal tally to 127.

Gururaja, who won a silver medal at the Gold Coast Games in 2018, began with an explosive clean lift of 115kg without any trouble and went to top. With Youri Simard of Canada and Morea Baru of PNG catching up, Poojary added 3 more kgs in his second attempt – making it a 118kg lift – which he also managed with ease.

However, in his third snatch attempt, which was of 120 kgs, Poojary fumbled, and at the end of the round was placed fourth with Aznil Bidin leading, followed by Morea Baru and Canada’s Youri Simard.

But while Poojary was unsuccessful in his final snatch attempt, he more than made up for it with his performance in clean and jerk. He straight away decided to lift 144kg in his first attempt and did it emphatically, followed by fist pumps. Simard bettered Poojary’s effort and went ahead by 2kgs.

Simard then lifted 149 in his final attempt which meant that Poojary had to successfully lift 151. He needed to pull off a repeat of his personal best to be in contention for bronze medal and Poojary did exactly that. The fight between gold and silver was between Bidin and Baru, but Poojary had secured India’s second medal of the day.