'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,/9j/2wBDAAYEBQYFBAYGBQYHBwYIChAKCgkJChQODwwQFxQYGBcUFhYaHSUfGhsjHBYWICwgIyYnKSopGR8tMC0oMCUoKSj/2wBDAQcHBwoIChMKChMoGhYaKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCj/wgARCAAHAAoDASIAAhEBAxEB/8QAFQABAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQT/2gAIAQEAAAAAuf/EABQBAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAb/2gAIAQIQAAAAU//EABQBAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAb/2gAIAQMQAAAAK//EABwQAAICAwEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAECAwQAERIUMf/aAAgBAQABPwBJL1uH2VpHgq02KWVEaMrvscqSTsDQYbUYl13RW4QdDf05/8QAFxEBAAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQACIf/aAAgBAgEBPwCprP/EABcRAAMBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAjH/2gAIAQMBAT8ArEf/2Q=='%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Injury claims have come to haunt Indian weightlifter Punam Yadav after she was disqualified from the women's 76kg category event after failing to register a single legitimate clean and jerk attempt at the ongoing Commonwealth Games 2022 (CWG 2022). The athlete, however, refuted the claims.
Punam started well in the snatch after lifting 98kg in her third attempt but fouled all three clean and jerk attempts of 116kg.
A day after her horrid performance, Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWLF) president Sahdev Yadav said Punam Yadav competed despite "not being fully fit."
Read: CWG 2022: Indian men's table tennis team beat Singapore 3-1, win gold medal
Disappointed with her show, the national federation chief said the lifter competed with an injury to her knee.
Trending
He told PTI:
"Clearly she dropped one medal from the weightlifting arena. That's why we held back her name. But the athlete claimed she's fit and showed a fitness certificate issued by a doctor. There's no way we could withhold her name as she joined the team late."
Sahdev Yadav backed up his claims with some keen observations of how Punam Yadav was going about her game at Birmingham.
He added:
"If you notice her lifts closely, she is not giving her best force while lifting the barbell from clean to jerk. The knee has to bend to get that full force. But in her case, it was missing. It's clear that she's not 100 per cent and we lost out on a medal."
Punam Yadav refutes injury claims
Punam Yadav was targeting her third Commonwealth Games medal. She was oncourse to win a medal as she was second after lifting 98kg in snatch.
Refuting all claims of being injured, the weightlifter said she was fully fit.
She said:
"Of course, I was fully fit. Niggles are part and parcel of a lifter's life and I was on course. It happens, my sheer bad luck."
Having failed 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.
Punam said:
"One of the judges smiled and I dropped it without seeing the light."
The lift was recorded as "zero" by the three judges.
