Odisha Weightlifter Wins Gold In Commonwealth Championship

courtesy: Orisports.com

Bhubaneswar: Promising Odia weightlifter Bhaktaram Desti won a gold medal on the opening day of the Commonwealth Senior, Junior and Youth Championship in the South Pacific island nation of Samoa on Tuesday.

The 20-year-old weightlifter lifted 185 kg in the 49-kg category.

Hailing from a poor farmer family of Chitrakonda area in Malkangiri district, Bhaktaram had won gold in the 62^nd School National Games at Warangal in Andhra Pradesh in 2016.

Later, he bagged the gold medal in the 1^st Khelo India School Games in New Delhi in 2018 and bagged another gold medal 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.