CHENNAI: In the Asian Championships held in Gandhinagar a couple of months ago, Indian weightlifter Rishikanta Singh Chanambam couldn't complete his lifts in the clean and jerk section to fall out of medal contention in the 60kg weight category. Pang Un Chol of North Korea finished first followed by Bin Kasdan Mohamad Aniq.
An injury in the right knee ended the Manipur lifter's dream then in front of his home crowd and it came back to haunt him again at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow on Sunday. Thankfully this time the Indian lifter managed to finish on the podium walking away with a silver medal.
With weightlifters from North Korea not competing at the CWG, once again it was the Malaysian lifter, who pocketed the gold pushing the Indian to the second spot. Incidentally, Rishikanta had beaten his Malaysian rival in the 2025 Commonwealth Championships to finish on top of the podium. But a troublesome knee meant he lost the next two competitions against the same competitor.
Rishikanta started by setting Games record in snatch section by lifting 121kg. Bin Kasdan equalled the feat and went ahead with a lift of 145kg in his first attempt of the clean and jerk section. Rishikanta heaved 143kg in his first attempt but the knee started hurting him as he could not lift weight in his next two attempts to end with an overall lift of 264kg.
The Malaysian lifter made it 149kg in his second attempt and improved it to 152kg in the final attempt to register an overall lift of 273kg, which is a Games record. Despite not completing his last two lifts in the C&J section, Rishikanta finished with a silver medal.
"Rishikanta sustained injury during the Asian Championships. We were careful in our training keeping that in mind but unfortunately his right knee started hurting again during the C&J section and that cost us a gold," Vijay Sharma, India's weightlifting head coach, told this daily from Glasgow.
Irrespective of the colour, the medal is historic for the 28-year-old Manipur lifter, who grew up in a modest household battling financial constraints. His father worked as a cab driver and even Rishikanta started working as a daily-wage labourer almost a decade ago when a bronze medal at the Junior Commonwealth Championships didn't find him a place at the SAI training centre in Imphal.
Obviously, Rishikanta was disappointed with the result and expressed it after his silver-winning efforts. "I came here for gold. After the snatch, I was in the leading position, but my knee created a problem. I was able to clean the weight but could not push because one thigh was not working properly. I tried my best," he told PTI. "I told guruji that we should take one lift to secure the medal and then push. I did not want to lose the medal," he said.
Rishikanta's overall lift might have been 9kg lesser than the gold medallist but it was enough to make him the first male weightlifter from Manipur to win a Commonwealth Games medal.