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Cheers for Central Railway
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It was a keen contest all the way at the All India Railway Powerlifting Competition
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PHOTO: MOHAMMED YOUSUF
POWER LIFT The championship saw some keen contests.
Power lifters from Central Railway put up outstanding performances and helped their team to chalk up a total of 63 points to lift the team title in the Third All India Railway Power Lifting Championship, which was held at the South Central Railway's RRC indoor stadium in Secunderabad recently. Western Railway was runner up and Integral Coach factory finished third. The host South Central Railway did well and bagged four medals, but since it did not have lifters in the heavier body weight categories it could not finish among the top three outfits.
The final day's competitions saw some keen contests as some of the lifters succeeded in lifting weighs in excess of 300 kilos. One of the most impressive persons was M. Shahnawaz of Central Railway who competed in the 125 kg body weight class. He lifted a total of 837.5 kilos in the three lifts namely squat, bench press and dead lift. In the dead lift competitions, he was one of the first lifters to cross the 300-kilo barrier.
Karthikeyan of Western Railway was also very good as he totalled 845 kilos in the 110 kilos body weight class. With his great confidence and focus, he managed to edge out his nearest opponent S. Nagaraj of Central Railway to the top spot.
Vinod Kumar of Southern Railway stole the show in the 125 kg and above category with a combined effort of 720 kg. Shamsheer Singh of Central Railway (597.5 kg) and Sanjeev Mudaliar of West-Central Railway (595 kg) were second and third respectively.
As this was only the third all India competition that was organised by the railways, there were no entries in the women section. But the Railways is considering bringing in a women's competition in its power lifting section in the near future, it was learnt.
South Central Railway has taken a step in the right direction by recruiting three specialist power lifters, Samjad, Suresh and Ch. Krishna, who are being trained under the guidance of coach Sampath Nathan, an NIS qualified coach. Sampath is confident that in the near future SCR teams will put up vastly improved performances in the railway power lifting meets.
Unlike weightlifting that is an Olympic sport, power lifting continues to be a low-key and less popular event at the international and national level. But efforts are on to promote power lifting and have it included in the Olympic games in the near future. This will automatically give it a big boost in terms of popularity and thereby also increase participation and awareness among the youth.
ABHIJIT SEN GUPTA
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