Sanket Sargar, the Indian weightlifter, has won the nation its first silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Gold.

Weightlifting has been one of the two most crucial disciplines for India at the Commonwealth Games and the Indian athletes associated with it have always delivered.

While Sargar is a three-time national champion and won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Championship in December 2021, he remains relatively unknown to Indian fans. Hailing from a family where his father runs a paan and food stall in Maharashtra, Sargar’s story is different to that of most Indian athletes at the Commonwealth Games.

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Born on October 16, 2000, in Sangli, Maharashtra, it was an obvious choice for Sanket to take up weightlifting. Sangli is known far and wide for their love for weightlifting and Sanket was no different, as he began his training in 2013 when he was only 13 years old.

The weightlifter studied at Kolhapur’s Shivaji University, and first came to attention when he won the gold medal at the senior national championship and the Khelo India Youth Games in 2020. Since then, it has been an upwards journey for him.

A three-time national champion, Sanket worked hard to become eligible for the Commonwealth Games 2022. The young weightlifter broke the Commonwealth and national record in 2021 at the Singapore Weightlifting Meet when he lifted 256 kg in total (113 kg+143 kg). He also won the gold medal at the Senior Nationals in 2022, which was organised in Bhubaneswar.

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While most of his success has come in the 55kg category, the event he will be participating in at the Commonwealth Games 2022, he has already set his sights on the 2024 Paris Olympics, in the 61 kg category.

Now 21-year-old, Sanket Sargar dreams of giving his father a break one day, when he has got a stable job.