Eight gold medals up for grabs on Day 1

Eight gold medals are up for grabs on Monday, the first day of the Delhi Commonwealth Games, with swimming offering five, weightlifting two and gymnastics one.

The first gold medal will be decided in the weightlifting women event in 48kg category, scheduled to begin at 1400 IST.

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Sandhya Rani Devi Atom and Ngangbam Soniya Chanu will represent India in the event.

The second gold medal will be decided in the 56kg category of the men's event, scheduled for 1830 IST. Sukhen Dey and Srinivasa Rao Valluri lead India's challenge.

Out of five gold medals in swimming, two are on offer in the women's category -- 200m freestyle and 200m individual medley.

The men will compete in the 400m freestyle finals, 200m butterfly finals and 4x100m freestyle relay.

The last gold medal of the day will be awarded in gymnastics -- Team Competition & Individual Qualification Men Subdivision 2.

Of the three events, Indian eyes will be on the weightlifting event as it was one of the biggest contributors in the medal tally for the country in the past few Games.

From 1990 to 2002, weightlifting contributed to nearly half of India's medal tally. There were 24 medals for India in 1990, while in 1994 and 1998 Games, the lifters returned with 11 and 13 medals respectively.

India's biggest medal haul came in the 2002 Manchester Games, when the  weightlifters won as many as 27 medals, including 11 gold, nine silver and seven bronze out of the country's overall tally of 69 medals.

However, the 2006 Melbourne Games was disappointing. The weightlifting team managed just nine medals – three gold, five silver and a bronze.

The weightlifting team for the Games includes defending champion in women's 58kg Renubala Chanu, K Ravi Kumar (men's 69 kg) and Soniya Chanu (women's 48kg).

Melbourne Games silver-medallist L Monika Devi is making a comeback after completing a two-year ban for doping.