Patiala: Harjinder Kaur, the 29-year-old daughter of a landless farmer from Mehas village in Punjab’s Nabha, won silver in the women’s 69kg weightlifting at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow on Wednesday, securing her second consecutive Games medal.Harjinder registered a combined lift of 227kg, including 101kg in the snatch and 126kg in the clean and jerk, to finish second. She won bronze in the 71kg division at the 2022 Birmingham Games with a 212kg total. Celebrations broke out early Wednesday at her family’s home. “She called me hours before stepping onto the platform and said she was fully fit and certain of gold or silver,” said her brother, Pritpal Singh, adding, “Her belief proved right.” Pritpal said the family’s finances were once so precarious that their father, Sahib Singh, was forced to sell their land after repeated crop losses. He said the family migrated from Pakistan during the Partition and eventually settled in Mehas village, where Harjinder’s grandfather and his five brothers were together allotted eight acres of agricultural land. “These eight acres were later divided between my grandfather and his four brothers, and my father, Sahib Singh, was forced to sell his share nearly two decades ago after mounting crop losses,” Pritpal said. Growing up, Harjinder helped her father in the fields and tended the family’s cattle, manual labour her brother credited with building her physical strength. She began in sports in Class XI as a kabaddi player before a local coach redirected her to tug-of-war, then weightlifting. Harjinder, who recently received Punjab’s Maharaja Ranjit Singh Award, is now employed with the income tax department. Her father continues to look after cattle on two acres of leased land. MSID:: 132708789 413 |
