CWG 2022: Indian weightlifters dominate as facilities for athletes improve

As Indian weightlifters dominate at the Commonwealth Games, the sport fraternity credits the govt and federation with improved facilities for athletes

According to the 2011 Census, Saidbhar, a small village in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, has a population of about 5,000 people. None bar two, by Shyam Yadav’s reckoning, had heard of weightlifting till five years ago. “My daughters (Preeti and Shivani) were the first two girls to start weightlifting in the village,” he says. “When they did, there was no interest, no knowledge and no facilities for weightlifting here. We built everything from scratch.”

The small gymnasium — called the Vediram Memorial Sports Society — where the two girls started training, houses over 40 weightlifters today. All of them are below