Sri Lanka’s Thimali Haputhenna who competed in the over-81kgs weight class hit the highlight on the last day of the Commonwealth Weightlifting Championship held in Uzbekistan yesterday as she bagged a silver medal by lifting 83 kgs in the Snatch and 106 kgs in the Clean and Jerk method for a total of 189 kgs.
Haputhenna is the only silver medalist of the Sri Lanka team that also has one gold and five bronze winners finishing with seven medals which is the highest number of medals won by the country in the history of the Commonwealth Weightlifting Championship.
In addition, for the first time the Sri Lanka men’s weightlifting team led by Indika Dissanayake won third place.
Skipper Dissanayake himself won the 73 kgs bronze medal while three more bronze medals were won by Chinthana Geethal Vidhanage (81kg ), Manoj Wijesinghe (67kg) and Thilanka Palagasinghe (61kg).
In the girls category Srimali Samarakoon created history to take the 45 kgs gold while on the final day Trimali Haputhenna won a silver medal in the over 81 kgs event and Nadishani Rajapakse won the 61 kgs bronze to complete the seven medals for Sri Lanka.