(Sports news): Karnam Malleshwari became the first weightlifter to win an Olympic medal for India and also the first woman to win an Olympic medal on September 19, 2000 in Sydney. She competed in the 69kg category and won the Bronze medal while missing the Gold by just two and half kilograms.

Malleshwari had a powerful start as all her lifts in Snatch were valid and finished with 110 kgs in her third attempt. In Clean and Jerk she started with a 125 kg lift and went on to lift 130 kgs which gave her a solid chance to win the gold but she failed to lift 137.5 as she finished with a total of 240 kilograms. The then world record holder Lin Weining of China won the gold with a total of 242.5 kgs and Erzsébet Márkus of Hungary finished second with the same total. Since Lin was lighter than Erzsébet she won the gold and she was also lighter than her opponent which gave her an advantage in case of a tie where both lift the same weight in the same attempt.

India only had won a single medal at the Sydney Olympics and Malleshwari opened the doors to the female athletes who had struggled to make a name in the Olympic stage ever since PT Usha came one hundredth of a second close to a medal in the 400 metre hurdles. Ever since, Malleshwari there have been 6 female medal winners from India and India has so far won two weightlifting medals both by women as Mirabai Chanu took the Silver in the Tokyo Olympics. The 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2016 Rio Olympics remains the only time where the medal winners were only women.

India did not have much infrastructure and being a female weightlifter was not considered the ideal sport as muscles for a woman was still a barrier. Malleshwari had more barriers as she was also married and the audience thought that that was the end of her career but she overcame all that by winning the most prestigious medal. The medal stands for the determination and courage Malleshwari showed in the Olympic stage and the weights must have been nothing compared to the responsibilities she had to take upon. 

With the recent performance in Olympics it's high time the government and the media realise that there are worthy competitors other than the medal winners. With the right amount of support and media attention, these athletes can bring much more laurels for the country as what Malleshwari did 21 years ago by breaking gender stereotypes now we can expect the athletes to jump across any hurdle.

Also read: Ben Johnson’s short lived stardom at the 1988 Seoul Olympics