Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, June 13: At the IWF Youth World Championships in Leon, Mexico, Gurunaidu Sanapathi became India’s first gold medalist in weightlifting.
Late on Sunday night, the 16-year-old won the gold medal in the boy’s 55kg category with a total effort of 230kg (104kg 126kg). Sanapathi, the bronze medalist at the 2020 Asian Youth Weightlifting Championships, was first, followed by Ali Majeed of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (229kg 124kg) in second and Yerassyl Umrov of Kazakhstan (224kg 124kg) in third.
On the second day of competitions, Sanapathi’s compatriot Soumya S. Dalvi won bronze in her event.
Dalvi of Maharashtra, a two-time Khelo India Youth gold medalist, heaved 148kg (65kg 83kg) to finish third in the 45kg girl’s event, behind Rose J Ramos of the Philippines 155kg (70kg 85kg) and Kerlys M. Montilla of Venezuela 153kg (71kg 82kg).
R Bhavani, the other Indian in the competition, came in seventh with a best performance of 132kg (57kg 75kg). India now has four medals to its name in the world tournament.
Akansha Kishor Vyavhare and Vijay Prajapati won silver medals in their respective events on the first day of competition.
Notably, in the last edition of the competition, which was held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia last year, India had not participated.
