Small town boy Sanket Sargar made the country proud on Saturday as he bagged the first medal at Commonwealth Games 2022.
Hailing from Maharashtra, Sargar won a silver medal in the men’s 55kg weightlifting event with a total of 248kg (113kg in snatch, 135 in clean and jerk).Commonwealth Games 2022 .Earlier in February this year, he had qualified for Commonwealth Games with his performance at the Singapore Weightlifting International event.
Sanket made country proud at Commonwealth Games 2022
Sanket comes from Sangli, Maharashtra and his father owns a pan shop. He took up wrestling when he was 13-year-old and has been scripting history at major events, including Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships 2021 in Tashkent where he won a gold medal.
At Birmingham, he snatched 113kg and clean and jerk 135 kg for a total of 248kg in the men’s 55kg weight division and wrote his name into the record books. He was chasing gold and was ahead after the snatch portion, but hurt himself on the second clean and jerk lift. He returned for the third attempt, but his right elbow was compromised. Opening India’s medal account means he’ll be the talk of the town, if not the country. #Sanket will trend on Twitter.
the regulars at that nondescript hole-in-the-wall shop, in a small town in western India, some might remember a time before the 21-year-old became famous. They could tell you of a time when Sanket was a young boy, eyes fixed on that hazy monitor, with dreams infinitely bigger and more vivid than a life making paan in the shop that shared his name.
Earlier in February this year, he had qualified for the Commonwealth Games with his performance at the Singapore Weightlifting International event. He also registered victory by winning a gold medal and had set a national record of 138kg at the Khelo India University Games 2020.
The Prime Minister will likely post his congratulations
Sanket shared his struggle
Sanket remembers the moment very well. When he thinks the seed of winning a medal at the Commonwealth Games was firmly planted in his head.
“I remember it very clearly,” he told Sportstar a few days back. “It was around 6am — very early in the morning — on April 5 in 2018. That was when Guru Raja bhaiya (Poojari Gururaja) was competing in the Commonwealth Games in the 56 kg category. I remember one customer wanted a masala paan, so that’s what I was making. At the same time, I was watching the weightlifting competition on the TV in the shop. Right then, I decided agli baar mai jaunga. Pakka, I will be there. Jaunga hi jaaunga. Bas mehnat karna hai. Aur kya karna hai? (I decided the next time I’m going to be there for sure. The only thing I have to do is work hard. What else is there to it),” he recalls thinking.
At the time Sanket saw Gururaja winning a silver at the Gold Coast Games, he had already been training as a weightlifter for five years. It had not been his idea to become a weightlifter. That was the dream of his father, Mahadev Sargar. “I had always wanted to become a sports person. But I never had that opportunity. I was from a village, and my priority was to earn a living,” says Mahadev.
I felt if I had worked a little harder, I would have got gold. My dad said ‘ Kuch karna hai, toh mehnat karna padega. Warna dukan me baithna padega. (If I want to achieve something, I have to work hard, otherwise, I’d be working at the shop forever).’ Dad said he didn’t want us to stay in the dukan. He wanted us to have a good life. That’s why he would say you are getting a chance. Work hard. It’s in your hands. I realised then that if I didn’t give my best, I’d never get to the national level,” he says.
However, from time to time, he’ll think of the shop where it all started. “Some people might be embarrassed that they had to work in a tapri. In the past, my customers who knew I was a weightlifter would ask why I was working there. But it is part of who I am. The only thing is that earlier people knew it just as Sanket pan tapri. Now they should know it as Commonwealth Games medallist Sanket Pan tapri,” he says.
Sanket Sargar’s father Mahadev says: “I had always wanted to become a sports person. But I never had that opportunity. I was from a village, and my priority was to earn a living.”
