Punjab ruled the weightlifting arena on the fourth day, winning three of the six golds on offer besides a silver and a bronze at the Khelo India Youth Games 2019here on Saturday.

Punjab were nowhere in the picture till Friday but made their mark on Saturday to bring themselves on par with Mizoram and Manipur, a media release issued here said.

Maharashtra, however, are on top of the weightlifting medals tally so far with six golds though Saturday was rather unproductive for the home state.

Andhra Pradesh's A S R K Yadav was the star of the day.

Yadav won the Under-17 gold by a massive margin, as his total of 267 kg (121 snatch and 146 Clean & Jerk), which was 29 kg better than the second placed Anil Singh of Punjab.

In the race for medals in U-21 section, he trumped Baldev Guru (from Punjab) in the snatch by lifting 121 kg but fell 2 kg short in clean and jerk, finishing with 146 kg.

Apart from Baldev Guru, Navdeep Kaur and Nikhil Tugnait won gold for Punjab's while Anil Singh and Gurkaran Singh took silver and bronze respectively for their state.

Halavath Karthik from Telangana beat his opponents quite comfortably with a total of 258kg in the89kg men's youth (U-17) section(snatch112kg, clean and jerk 146kg).

Nikhil Tugnait gave Punjab their second gold in the89kg men's junior event.

He hoisted 134 kg in snatch and added 160 kg to his tally in clean and jerk for a total of294 kgs, the release stated.

In women's action, Navdeep Kaur won the 64 kg (U-17) class with a total lift of151kg.

It was a tight battle in the women's64 kg junior class,between Seram Nirupama Devi of Manipur and G.

Lalitha of Andhra Pradesh with the former eventually sealing gold by lifting a total of 196kg, (snatch 84 kg, clean and jerk 112 kg), the release added.