Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWF) chairman Sahdev Yadav claimed on Tuesday that Punam Yadav competed despite not being “fully fit” and lashed out at the lifter after her disastrous performance at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. Punam was disqualified from the women’s 76kg category after failing in all three attempts at clean and jerk. However, the reigning CWG champion in the 69kg category was in the silver medal-winning position after the grab, lifting 98kg in her third attempt.
The head of the national federation was clearly disappointed with her show and said the lifter was competing with an injury to her knee.
“Ek medal hath se chhut gayi – she clearly dropped a medal in the weightlifting arena,” Yadav told PTI.
“That’s why we initially withheld her name. But the athlete claimed she was fit and showed a fitness certificate issued by a doctor. There was no way we could withhold her name because she was late joining the team.
“If you notice her lifting up close, she wasn’t giving her best strength lifting the barbell from clean to jerk. The knee needs to bend to get that full strength.
“But in her case it was missing. Obviously she is not 100 percent and we lost a medal,” Yadav claimed.
Asked for clarification, a tearful Punam said she was fully fit.
“Haanji, haanji — bilkul fit thi (Of course I was fully fit). Niggles are an essential part of a hitchhiker’s life and I was on track. It happened, my sheer bad luck,” she said.
The 27-year-old was aiming for a third CWG medal and was in second place after lifting 98kg on her second attempt in the snatch.
After failing to lift 116kg in the first two attempts of clean and jerk, the Varanasi lifter finally had a clean lift, but dropped it before the three judges gave the green signal.
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“Usne smile kiya and head throw kar diya (one of the judges smiled and I dropped it without seeing the light),” said Punam, who won gold at Gold Coast 2018 in the 69kg category, after her lift was registered as “ zero” by the three judges.
India has so far won seven medals – including three golds – from 10 weight categories. The country leads the weightlifting medal standings for Canada (2-1-4) in terms of gold medals.
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