Odia Weightlifter Selected For Commonwealth Championship

Bhubaneswar: Promising Odia weightlifter Bhaktaram Desti has found a place in the national team for the Commonwealth Senior, Junior and Youth Championship from July 9 in the South Pacific island nation of Samoa.

The 20-year-old weightlifter, who has been undergoing training at the national training camp in Patiala since January 20, will leave for Samoa with the Indian team from New Delhi on July 5, Bhaktaram’s coach Sita Kumari Jena informed.

Hailing from a poor farmer family of Chitrakonda area in Malkangiri district, Bhaktaram was admitted to the Sports Hostel in Berhampur in 2014 after he was selected for training in weightlifting.

Following his sterling performance in the state-level weightlifting championship in 2016, Bhaktaram was selected in the state team to participate in the 62^nd School National Games at Warangal in Andhra Pradesh the same year. He justified his selection by bagging a gold medal at the event.

Later, he won the gold in the 1^st Khelo India School Games in New Delhi in 2018 and bagged another gold in the Youth National Championship at Nagpur the same year, setting a new national record.

This January, the young Odia weightlifter won a gold and set a new national record in the 49-kg boys’ category lifting 186 kg (81 kg in snatch and 105 kg in clean & jerk) in the Khelo India Youth Games in Pune.