For India, Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games silver medallist and 2017 World Champion Mirabai Chanu (women’s 49 kg class) justified the pre-event favouritism with minimum fuss, and youngsters Jeremy Lalrinnunga (men’s 67 kg) and Achinta Sheuli (men’s 73 kg) marked their Commonwealth Games debut with golden victories.

The silver medals came from Sanket Mahadev Sargar (men’s 55 kg), Vikas Thakur (men’s 96 kg), and Bindyarani Devi, who broke the national record in ‘clean and jerk’ in the women’s 55 kg competition. Gururaja Poojary (men’s 61 kg), Lovepreet Singh (men’s 109 kg), Gurdeep Singh (men’s +109 kg), and Harjinder Kaur (women’s 71 kg) picked up a bronze each.

As their luck would have it, Ajay Singh, Popy Hazarika, Punam Yadav, Usha Kumara, and Purnima Pandey finished away from the podium, with Punam Yadav having to deal with the nightmare of all lifters – a no-mark leading to a ‘Did Not Finish’ against her name. And worse, she had to face immediate criticism that she was competing with an injury.

It would have been wonderful if the weightlifters improved on their personal bests and rewrote national records, just as Lovepreet Singh did in with three marks in ‘snatch, clean, and jerk’ and total lifts in the men’s 109 kg class.

Then again, it could be argued that athletes had to be mindful of injuries and not push themselves hard when the primary goal is to ensure a podium finish, with the gold being in the crosshairs.

All said and done, while athletes and sports officials will have to do what they need to do, the response to their performance is in the hands of fans and critics.