BHUBANESWAR: It was a proud day for the Sahu family. Manoja Kumar Sahu, son of a driver in Odisha State Road Transport Corporation (OSRTC), won gold in the weightlifting under-21 boy’s 73kg in the Khelo India University Games at KIIT University on Thursday. He represents Berhampur University.
Sahu, a silver medal winner in the boys under-21 73kg class in the Khelo India Youth Games in Guwahati last month, also improved on his own mark. He had a total of 267kg here, compared to 264kg in Guhawati, to claim the gold ahead of Manish Kumar (Panjab University) and Lovepreet Singh (Punjabi University).
It was not an easy journey for Sahu, with finance being a major roadblock. He worked part-time in tiffin stalls to meet his day-to-day expenses.
“Earlier, my father was not very supportive, but my mother motivated me a lot. I worked in a small tiffin stall near Siva and Shakti movie hall in Berhampur for an hour and two. I was paid between `100 and `200,” said Sahu. But things changed gradually. With consistent performance, he was selected to join the weightlifting high-performance centre set up by the Odisha government, in association with the Anil Kumble-promoted TENVIC at KIIT University, in 2019.
“I started training at the high-performance centre 10 months ago. I have improved during this time. I’ve changed my technique and I feel much better now. My diet has changed and I’m being trained by a professional who also has a lot of experience as an athlete,” added Sahu. Sahu hails from a family of weightlifters. One of his uncles Chandra Sekhar Sahu was a Commonwealth Weightlifting Championship gold medallist while another uncle Krushna Chandra Sahu was a national-level medal winner. It was in 2015 that he joined Veer Hanuman Club in Berhmanpur after completing his tenth standard. But the initial spark came when he was studying Class 5.
“It was my uncles who introduced me to the sport. I once got a chance to meet my idol lifter K Ravi Kumar in our Veer Hanuman Club. He also helped me fine-tune my technic. My dream is to win an international medal for my country,” said Sahu.
Pune University on top
Savitribai Phule Pune University tightened their grip on the top place in the medal tally at the Khelo India University Games by claiming a clutch of gold medals in weightlifting through Mahesh Datta Asawale and Prajkta Ravindra Khalkar. In wrestling, Jyotiba Bajrang Atkale won for gold.