'I really thought there was no way I was going to lose gold…': Lovepreet Singh

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Soon after winning silver, holding the medal around his neck, Lovepreet Singh told us in Punjabi: “Mainu lagda si apna gold aa hi gaya hun! [I thought the gold medal was mine].”

At the halfway stage of the men’s +110kg weightlifting competition at the Commonwealth Games here on Thursday night, Lovepreet was practically certain he was going to win the gold medal. “I really thought there was no way I was going to lose gold after the snatch section,” Lovepreet said.

You can blame Lovepreet for getting ahead of himself, for counting his chickens before the eggs had hatched, yet such thoughts aren’t unnatural if you lead your nearest rival by 10kg after the snatch section. Overturning such a lead in the clean and jerk is difficult, though not unheard of, of course — and New Zealand’s David Andrew Liti did the unthinkable on Thursday night to deny Lovepreet the gold.

David Liti

Liti, the Birmingham 2022 CWG silver medallist in the +109kg division, had a best lift of 166kg in snatch. Lovepreet bettered that by 10kg when he set a new CWG record of 176kg. 

Coming back for the clean and jerk section close to an hour later, Liti had a mountain to climb. Lovepreet lifted 205kg, and Liti picked up 207kg. The Indian’s aggregate was now 381kg to Liti’s 373kg. On his next attempt, Lovepreet added 7kg to the bars and, straining every muscle in his body, completed the lift. Minutes later, the Indian giant again strode to the middle, offered a silent prayer, and bent down to lift 217kg. 

“I’ve done this lift in the past, and I thought I’d do it again,” he said later. He couldn’t. Yet, with a total of 388kg, he had a lead of 15kg over Liti. But Liti had a nasty surprise in store. He raised the bar from 207kg to 223kg and turned the tables with a monster lift. He surged to the top with a total of 389kg.

Lovepreet was beaten, the gold he thought was his had been snatched away. Liti didn’t have to attempt his third lift, for he had won by a kilo. This was a rude surprise for Lovepreet, but those who saw Liti in Birmingham four years ago had witnessed him lifting 218kg and 224kg in the clean and jerk.

“Now I rue missing my lift of 217kg,” Lovepreet, who is employed by the Indian Navy, said. Then, typically for a Punjabi from a village, he used a wrestler’s rather than a lifter’s analogy: “Jadon do pehelwan bhid-de ne, ik ne taan tehna hi hai [when two wrestlers fight, one of them has to fall],” he said.

Indians in action today

Para Athletics
>> Men’s F57 shot put final: Shubham Juyal and Soman Rana (14:35 onwards)
>> Men’s 1500m T54 final: Ramesh Shanmugam (14:50)

Athletics
>> Men’s triple jump final:, Praveen Chithravel and Selva Prabhu Thirumaran (14:40)
>> Women’s 10,000m race walk final: Priyanka Goswami and Ravina Gayakwad (15:00)
>> Men’s pole vault final: Dev Meena and Kuldeep Kumar (23:35 onwards)
>> Men’s 5000m final: Gulveer Singh (00:15 Sunday)
>> Mixed 4x400m relay final: Vishal TK, Rajesh Ramesh, Rashdeep Kaur, and Neeru Pathak (01:50 Sunday)

Boxing
>> Women’s 54kg final: Preeti Pawar vs Scarlett Savannah Delgado (Canada) (15:30)
>> Women’s 57kg final: Jaismine Lamboria vs Michaela Walsh (Northern Ireland) (15:45)
>> Men’s 55kg final: Jadumani Singh vs Jye Dixon (Australia) (16:15)
>> Women’s 70kg final: Arundhati Choudhary vs Chantelle Reid (England) (21:30)
>> Men’s 80kg final: Ankush Panghal vs Dimeji Shittu (England) (22:15)

Judo
>> Women’s -63kg round of 16: Unnati Sharma vs Lamulela Magagula (Eswatini) 
(15:30 onwards)
>> Men’s -90kg round of 16: Karanjit Singh Maan vs Elliott Connolly (New Zealand) 
(15:30 onwards)
>> Men’s -81kg quarter-final: Harsh Tokas vs Odysseas Georgakis (Cyprus) 
(15:30 onwards)
>> Women’s -70kg quarter-final: Inunganbi Takhellambam vs TBD (15:30 onwards)

Lawn Bowls
>> Men’s pairs sectional play:  India (Navneet Singh, Dinesh Kumar) vs England (15:50)
>> Women’s singles sectional play: Nayanmoni Saikia vs Bridget Herselman (South Africa) (22:20)

Track Cycling
>> Men’s 10km scratch race qualifying: Dinesh Kumar & Harshveer Singh Sekhon (16:19 onwards)

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