Jhili Dalabehera shrugged off her last year’s disappointing performance to claim the women’s 45kg title on the opening day of the National weightlifting championships here on Monday.
Jhili, a former World junior bronze medallist who had crashed out of the medal contention after returning three ‘no lifts’ in the last edition in Visakhapatnam, totalled 160kg and managed to beat her Railways teammate M.V. Thushmita.
Jhili recorded a ‘no lift’ despite hoisting 71kg in her final snatch attempt for an identical 69kg with Deepali Gursale of Maharashtra. With Deepali failing to impress in clean and jerk, the title race eventually remained between Jhili and Thushmita.
Jhili could not lift 93kg in her final effort, while Thushmita tasted success for the same weight. Nevertheless, Jhili walked away with the crown to celebrate her 21st birthday.
Shubham Kolekar of Maharashtra defeated an experienced Gururaja of Services to win the men’s 61kg crown.
Gururaja was full of confidence after bettering his National record of 118kg in snatch by one kg in his second attempt.
Both Kolekar and Gururaja did 152kg in their second clean and jerk effort before the Maharashtra lifter opened up a lead with a record performance of 157kg and new record aggregate of 272kg.
In his final appearance, Gururaja tried 157kg in vain.
Youth Olympics gold medallist Jeremy Lalrinnunga overcame two ‘no lifts’ in snatch to emerge as the men’s 67kg champion.
The results: Men: 55kg: 1. Sanket Sargar (Mah) snatch 108kg [NR, Old 106kg, R. Madhavan], clean and jerk 135kg [NR, Old 134kg, Shubham Todkar], total 243kg [NR, Old 241kg, A.Gunasekar]; 2. A. Gunasekar (RSPB) 106kg, 135kg, 241kg; 3. Ch. Rishikanta Singh (Mani) 106kg, 133kg, 239kg.
61kg: 1. Shubham Kolekar (Mah) 115kg, 157kg [NR, Old 152kg, Gururaja], 272kg [NR, Old 271kg, Gururaja]; 2. Gururaja (SSCB) 119kg [NR, Old 188kg, Gururaja], 152kg, 271kg; 3. Ramkumar S. (RSPB) 113kg, 143kg, 256kg.
67kg: 1. Jeremy Lalrinnunga (Miz) 132kg, 167kg [NR, Old 166kg, Jeremy], 299kg; 2. Apurba Chetia (Asm) 125kg, 147kg, 272kg; 3. Gurjeet Kumar (SSCB) 120kg, 151kg, 271kg.
Women: 45kg: 1. Jhili Dalabehera (RSPB) 69kg, 91kg, 160kg; 2. M.V. Thushmita (RSPB) 66kg, 93kg, 159kg; 3. H. Jinarani Devi (Mani) 66kg, 91kg, 157kg.