Achinta Sheuli bags India's third gold, sixth overall medal

He shattered two Commonwealth Games records en route to his success in men's 73kg category.

Indian weightlifter Achinta Sheuli created history by winning gold medal in Men’s 73kg weightlifting. He lifted a total of 313 kg, creating a Commonwealth Games record in overall kgs lifted and also in snatch. Achinta lifted a Games record 143kg in Snatch and 170kg in clean&jerk. With this, he became the sixth Indian weightlifter to win a medal in Commonwealth Games 2022, Birmingham. This is the sixth medal for India at CWG 2022 and third gold overall.

Achinta lifted a total of 313kg (143kg S + 170kg C&J) to claim the yellow metal. Meanwhile, Malaysian weightlifter Erry Hidayat Muhammad won the silver medal  by lifting 303 kg (138kg S + 165kg C&J). Canada’s Shad Darsigny lifted a total of 298kg (135kg S + 163kg C&J) and took home the bronze.

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Achinta, 20, was leading with 309kg when he failed to lift 170kg in his second clean&jerk attempt. However, he came back and nailed 170kg with his third attempt to make it a total of 313kg. The second-placed Hidayat couldn’t better his number as he only successfully lifted 165kg in his first clean&jerk attempt. He failed to clear 176kg in both his second and third attempts.

Hailing from Bengal, the 20-year-old has previously won silver at the Junior World Weightlifting Championships, 2021. He is also a two-time Commonwealth Championships gold medalist.

Coming from a very poor background, Achinta Sheuli had to take up stitching and embroidery work to help support his family’s income along with his brother after their father passed away. Achinta’s father was a laborer in Howrah town of West Bengal before his untimely death in 2013.

In recent years, Achinta has established himself as one of the most talented young weightlifters in the nation achieving back-to-back feats and medals. Achinta also credited his brother for his success and has also spoken about he was inspired by Mirabai Chanu.

Earlier on the day, Jeremy Lalrinnunga clinched gold medal in Weightlifting by lifting a total of 160 kg in the clean&jerk to finish with a grand total of 300kg. Achinta has now joined the likes of Sanket Sargar (Silver), Olympic Silver medalist Mirabai Chanu (Gold), Gururaja Poojary (Bronze) and Bindyarani Devi (silver) to have brought India glory so far at Commonwealth Games 2022.

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