CHENNAI: It’s not easy to be an athlete. They have to toil day in and day out, ignoring pain and nagging injuries as 100 per cent fitness is a myth in the world of sports.
Indian weightlifter Harjinder Kaur will vouch for it as she has been lifting hundreds of kilograms of weight across various competitions despite sprain in her wrists and a nagging back issue. She even consulted an expert early this year and his advice was to rest as much as possible. But that was not an option as the Punjab lifter has to qualify for the 2026 Commonwealth and Asian Games.
“With both CWG and Asiad scheduled, we decided against the advice given by the expert,” Pritpal Singh, Harjinder’s elder brother, told this daily. “The Asian Championships was there in May. She competed in it and won a bronze in the snatch section. It also helped her to book her place in the team for the CWG,” added the brother. The 29-year-old must have endured immense pain and suffered a lot in the lead up to the Glasgow CWG. All those pains and sufferings gave way to ecstasy as she finished second in the women’s 69kg weight category in Glasgow on Tuesday.
Four years ago she won a bronze medal in the 71kg weight category in a dramatic fashion at Birmingham on her CWG debut. She was almost out of the medal contention but her Nigerian opponent, who dominated in the snatch section, failed to complete a single lift in the clean and jerk section and went out of the contest. It brought Harjinder back in the game as she finished with the bronze.
If luck played a part in her win the previous edition, Harjinder was at her best four years later in Glasgow. At one point of time, she was dominating the show in the 69kg until Canada’s Charlotte Simoneau made it a one-sided contest. The two-time junior world champion lifted 104kg in her first snatch attempt and then completed the lift of 108kg to break the Games record twice in a span of a few minutes. She then went for 111kg but couldn’t complete it.
Harjinder was the next best with a lift of 101 in her third attempt. It was also the Indian lifter’s personal best in snatch with the previous being 99kg. She started with 96kg and took it to 99kg in the next attempt. Rest of the field couldn’t even reach the three-figure mark.
A late bloomer as she took up weightlifting at the age of 20, Harjinder carried the momentum in the clean and jerk section and lifted 96kg, 99kg and 101kg in three attempts respectively. Harjinder also registered her personal best in the clean and jerk section on her way to the silver medal. The total of 227kg was also her personal best. The previous best of 222kg (99+123) came in the 2025 Commonwealth Championships.
“She surpassed all our expectations,” an elated coach Vijay Sharma told this daily from Glasgow shortly after she secured the silver medal. “We were expecting a medal from her but she outperformed herself to register her personal best in all sections. Even if we have tried, we could not have bettered the show,” added the coach.
Canada’s lifter once again destroyed the field as she lifted 127kg in her first attempt and then improved it to 132kg. She could not complete her last attempt of 135kg but by then she had already clinched the gold.
Nirupama fails to finish
Meanwhile, Nirupama Devi managed just one successful lift from six attempts to bow out of the 63kg competition. The 25-year-old Manipuri lifter completed just one lift of 93kg in the snatch section before failing in all three attempts in clean and jerk. She was trying to heave 123kg, which was way lower than her personal best of 126kg. The below-par outing meant Nirupama became the only Indian lifter to return empty handed in the competition till Tuesday. The Indian lifters won one gold, five silver and one bronze medal so far in the quadrennial event. The coach said it was not the day of Nirupama. "Everything was fine with her but only one thing was missing. As I always say, day matters and today was not her day," Sharma said.