Commonwealth Games Day 5 Highlights: Sharmila wins gold, Sarvesh Kushare wins silver

As many as FIVE medals on a single day. And the story of the day was women's shot put F57 where the gold and bronze both went to Indians. Sharmila has made history by being the first India, Shilpa Shyla then won bronze in the same event to make it two medals for the country there.

Gyaneshwari Yadav started it off earlier with a silver medal, which was followed closely by Bindyarani Devi winning bronze. Ajaya Babu then won the third weightlifting medal of the day. Sarvesh Kushare won silver in men's high jump, missing out on gold by just the countback.

Ajay Babu has lifted a Games record 184kg in clean and jerk. He is in the gold medal position and will clinch it if Malaysia's Erry Hidayat Muhammad fails to lift 184kg. Or else, silver.

Nigeria's Eucharia Iyiazi gets into the fray at last and her best throw is 8.19m! That's gold medal then for Sharmila! Extraordinary stuff! Sharmila had a best throw of 9.81m with her third attempt. Ghana's Zinabu Issah wins silver with a best throw of 8.65m. Sharmila joins Mirabai Chanu as the only Indians to have won gold thus far at Glasgow 2026.

He is assured of a medal and really, it could be of any colour. Both him and England's Kimani Jack, who is third at the moment, and the top-placed Romaine Beckford of Jamaica are going for 2.28m. All three of them fail in their first attempts. As things stand, Beckford has gold, Kushare silver and Jack bronze.

Sharmila incredble! She has a best throw of 9.18m, which is also her season's best. That puts her right at the top of the pile and even though Nigeria's Eucharia Iyiazi is yet to throw, Sharmila can't go below second now. Meanwhile, Shilpa is placed third but could go fourth.

He was unsuccesfull in his second attempt but then came back for 149kg in his third. This time, he had no trouble and that's a Games record once again, with England's Chris Murray having briefly taken it when he lifted 148kg for his third attempt.

Going into the clean and jerk rounds, Ajay is in the gold medal position.

He won the first round 4-1 buth then went on to lose the second and third to Northern Ireland's Jon McConnell.

Shilpa throws a personal best of 7.26 with her third throw and that has put her right at the top of the pile! She is done with her throws but there are three more throwers yet to come, including fellow Indian Sharmila.

Ajay Babu has listed 145kg for his first attempt in snatch, the joint-highest first-attempt weight along with Malaysia's Erry Hidayat Muhammad. Could be a while before we see him in action. In the mean time, you can go ahead and check out Tanishq Vaddi's excellent piece on how a traditional strength contest held in villages like the one Ajay is from - Kondavelagada, in northern Andhra Pradesh has resulted in the area becoming a hotbed for weightlifting greats. Go ahead and click HERE to read it. You don't wanna miss it.

The Indians are coming at last in men's high jump. First up, it's Kushare and it loooks like Tejaswin Shankar might be next after him. Kushare has 2.05m as his first jump and he clears it with ease. In third place for now.

As stated earlier, Shilpa Kanchurgarakoppalu, Shyla and Sharmila are in the running in this event for India

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Well, it's a potential medal rush. It's a rush of finals in athletics for sure. Medals could come from here: Shilpa Kanchurgarakoppalu, Shyla and Sharmila are in the women's shot put f57 final; Sarvesh Kushare, Tejaswin Shankar and Aadarsh Ram in men's high jump final; Rakeshbhai Bhatt and Shreyansh Trivedi in men's t38 100m at 1.57am and Tejas Shirse in men's 110m hurdles at 2.l5am. Apart from that, Ajay Babu is in men's 79kg weightlifting.

Sakshi Chaudhary in the ring now and she is facing Botswana's Lethabo Modukanele. Sakshi is one of the favourites in this weight division, having only recently moved down to it and reaping the benfits of her long reach. Nitin Sharma had written about that in May this year and you can read more HERE.

She comes out to try and heave 116kg for her third attempt and fails. That means she is for now in silver medal position, with Nigeria's Lawal yet to start with her clean and jerk attempts. Now the latter has listed 117kg as her first weight itself. If she does lift that, Bindyarani will win bronze, and that is the most likely scenario.

All right then, Bindyarani getting ready now for her lift. And interistingly, she has reduced her first lift to 110kg. She had initially listed 113kg.

She positions herself aand... it's a good lift! Bindyarani jumps to the top for now but Taschereau and Lawal yet to lift of course. Both have listed higher weights. Oh but wait a second!

The judges then have further discussions and decide that this was a "no lift". Well how about it. For now, Bindyarani's second lift is still listed at 112kg but before she comes back, Taschereau is going for her first clean and jerk attempt.

...the same as England's Eliza Pratt. So she is in a clear battle for bronze. Ann Sophie Taschereau of Canada is second with a best lift of 94kg. However, the gold seems to be locked out already by Nigeria's Rafiatu Folashade Lawal, who starts off with 95kg, then improves to 100kg with her second snatch lift and then sets a new Commonwealth record with 103kg in third attempt.

How about it. The Games and Commonwealth Record is hers briefly in clean and jerk when she lifts 111kg in her third lift but then Didih surpasses that by lifting 113kg for her. What a contest this was between them. In the end, Gyaneshwari is India's third silver medallist lifter at these Games and the fourth medal in the sport overall.

Shivani Naik: In women’s elite gymnastics, a female gymnast can earn a specific 0.20 point bonus on vault by performing two separate vaults that feature saltos in different directions (one forward and one backward) during the second flight phase, provided both are landed without a fall.

Over at the Commonwealth Arena, Protistha Samanta is one of eight athletes in the fray in the women's vault final. Shivani Naik had spoken with her mother to get an insight into her journey till here, and jotted it down in her inimitable way. For the pleasure of reading that, feel free to click right HERE.

Ankush was dominant in the first round landing quite a few hooks and some inch-perfect punches. He swept the judges there. The dominance continued in the second and well, it was almost academic in the third round.

Ankush is the next Indian in the boxing ring today. He is facing Zalaan Jan of Antigua and Barbuda in the men's 80kg round of 16.

Lokesh finishes with a best jump of 7.77m, which puts him third in the overall qualifiers. That makes him the second Indian through to the final then! This will be held on Wednesday.

He was fourth at the 50m split and he finishes fourth in the end as well. Swatik manages a time of 1:15.85 in his heat. That makes him sixth fastest overall, 4.23 seconds behind the leader, which is enough for him to qualify for the final.

All right, we turn our attention back to men's long jump where Group B of qualifiers get underway. India is being represented by Lokesh Satyanathan here. Nihal Koshie had written three months ago about the NCAA title that he had won for his mother. READ HERE.