Behind gold medal at Junior World Championship, lifter Harshada’s story of grit & a 50-kg rice sack

HARSHADA GARUD remembers the excitement that day when as a 12-year-old, she casually walked as much as a 50-kg rice sack, lifted it on her again and coolly set it down, dusting off her palms, prepared for the subsequent one. She was in Class 8, and had seen her father struggling to lug the sacks into their home in Wadgaon village.

“I didn’t think much of it then,” she says. Six years on, Harshada has change into the primary Indian to win a weightlifting gold within the Junior World Championship.

On Monday, the 18-year-old from Maval taluka in Pune maxed her snatch effort (70 kg) for an total profitable carry of 153 kg within the 49-kg class to pip Turkey’s Bektas Kansu (150 kg) in Heraklion, Greece. “I was sure of a medal, but gold is the real thing,” she says.

Harshada was inspired to take up weightlifting by her father and his maternal uncle, each of whom nurtured goals of competing internationally however by no means may.

India 🇮🇳 simply received its first ever gold medal in weightlifting junior world championship!

Extremely happy with you Harshada Garud !

• SAI NCOE Aurangabad Weightlifting athletes received gold in junior World championship in 45 kg class. pic.twitter.com/LAARYJjxr3

— Anurag Thakur (@ianuragthakur) May 2, 2022

Wadgaon is a dot on the map exterior Pune metropolis, just lately upgraded to a nagar panchayat. But it is usually one in all Maharashtra’s weightlifting hubs, other than Manmad, Sangli and Kolhapur, led by 73-year-old health fanatic Biharilal Dubey who arrange fundamental gymnasiums right here in 1972.

Harshada, the truth is, is known as after Dubey’s daughter-in-law with whom the teenage star’s father Sharad used to coach. The father remembers the celebratory procession when his coaching accomplice had received a cross-country gold.

“I was very inspired that day and decided that my first child will be named after Harshada. That’s why I was so happy when my daughter was born. And it was decided even before her birth that she will be a weightlifter who will represent India,” says Sharad, who works within the panchayat’s waterworks division.

“Thankfully, my daughter hated studies, or she would have been caught up in books. The day she lifted that 50-kg sack of rice, I pushed her into weightlifting to complete my dream,” he says.

GOLD MEDAL ALERT 🚨

⚡️Harshada betters her PB by 8kg to win Jnr Worlds 45kg lifting 153Kg

👉Anjali missed out regardless of PB

Harshada Garud wins Gold Medal at Junior World Weighlifting 2022

Read extra ⬇️ @iwfnethttps://t.co/6IEwtzlKEr

— IndiaSportsHub (@IndiaSportsHub) May 2, 2022

Harshada grew up cussed, based on her household. “There was a teacher who would tell her that she wouldn’t get the 35 per cent needed to pass. But Harshada got first class, bought some pedha, walked into that teacher’s class and said, ‘See, sir, I got first class. Don’t ever tell a student she can’t’,” her father remembers.

“The teacher kept challenging me, so I told him, ‘now eat sweet and your words’,” says Harshada, who’s fondly referred to as “Radio” as a result of she “talks non-stop”.

“She’s so bull-headed she just won’t eat vegetables,” complains her mom, Rekha. “But once at the training camp in Patiala, she ate whatever the coach asked her to. She’ll talk non-stop outside, but not a word when in training. She’s very ambitious and focussed.”

Dubey has been teaching in Wadgaon for 50 years, and would insist that women get educated in athletics and weightlifting since 1980. The gender battles aside — truckers catcalling his cross nation runners practising in shorts on roads and his gymnasium being taunted for inviting women — Wadgaon confronted one other sort of sports activities snobbery.

Wrestlers accustomed to conventional mud routines would ridicule him for operating an “artificial lokhandi taalim (iron pumping gymnasium)”. “Yes, we mostly did fitness along the Indrayani river and in the surrounding hills and in monsoon ditches. But there was a time in the 1970-80s, when iron equipment was laughed at by traditionalists,” Dubey remembers.

Harshada Garud, SAI Aurangabad NCoE trainee received Gold 🥇 whereas Anjali Patel with a complete carry 148kg (Snatch-67kg; Clean & Jerk- 81kg) positioned fifth at 2022 IWF World Junior Weightlifting Championships

Congratulations to each 👏
Well finished Girls 💪

🎥 @iwfnet #IndianSports activities pic.twitter.com/QbqBaxy64G

— SAI Media (@Media_SAI) May 2, 2022

Harshada’s father and his uncles warmed as much as lifting rapidly, says Dubey. “The girl came prepared to work hard. In the early days, I used to hit all trainees with a long ruler, which I stopped now. She was known as outspoken but not once did she cry when being punished, and would stubbornly work harder,” he remembers.

Self-taught, Dubey sought out Nana Bhadale and Capt Shivram Damle, the Physical Education heads of the then high faculties of Pune, Wadia and MES, and Pune’s well-known ‘Marwari Master’ Babulal Premlal Dhunwal who was identified for designing coaching programmes. At any given level, he had 200-300 trainees.

Rama Shetty and Vaishali Khamkar had been the primary girls from Maharashtra to win medals in weightlifting in 1985. They attracted numerous consideration after the Maharashtra chief Vasant Rao Patil, then the Rajasthan Governor, invited the state girls’s group to Raj Bhavan for dinner.

Shetty and Khamkar had received utilizing a unisex method taught to girls and boys in Wadgaon, which inadvertently influenced the lifting model adopted by Harshada in Clean & Jerk, which had saved her restricted to silver and bronze medals all these years.

Harshada went on to undertake the Chinese Clean & Jerk method, the place the barbell is pushed whereas nonetheless seated, and which wants excellent again energy and the aptitude to take intense strain on the backbone. But when she went to the nationwide camp at Patiala, the coaches inspired her to change to the “Split” model, the place the legs shuffle and propel the load over the pinnacle and shoulders.

The enchancment resulted in an increase from 73 kg to 83 kg in a single month, and pushed her into gold medal rivalry. “After the Bhubaneswar junior nationals, where I realised the older technique is holding me back, I switched. It was also very hot at the nationals, so I could only get bronze. But I knew changing to the Split technique would help because the Chinese style needs a lot of strength and mostly women don’t employ it,” she says.

Patiala additionally improved her weight-reduction plan. “We put everything into her sport, but it was never enough,” says Sharad about his fixed guilt of not having been in a position to present his daughter with the specified vitamin and energy.

“I like chicken and pav bhaji. But you know, when you stay at home you eat all the wrong things. But at the camp I started eating right, even veggies and lots of meat. My legs got stronger,” says Harshada, who loves consuming crab cooked the agricultural model.

The Snatch was by no means an issue however Clean & Jerk would at all times drag her down. “Not anymore. See, I don’t take tension, so I’ll keep training and follow a process. But I’m stubborn. I know I want a medal from the 2028 Olympics. If I want it, I want it,” she says.