Sanket Sargar

Some Lesser Known Facts About Sanket Mahadev Sargar

• Sanket Mahadev Sargar is an Indian weightlifter who holds the national and Commonwealth record of 256 kg in the men’s 55 kg weight class. He won the silver medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham with a total lift of 248 kg.

• Sanket Sargar belongs to a family with humble background with tea seller parents. In an interview, his father said,
  

  I used to tell him that my father used to sell bananas and I sell tea and pakoda. So dream big.”

• Hailing from the weightlifting belt of Sangli, he was inclined toward the sport since childhood. In an interview, he said,
  

  The children in our locality hardly play any other sport. I got into weightlifting when I was 13.”

• A fan of weightlifting coach Nana Sinhasane, Sanket’s father enrolled him in Digvijay Weightlifting Centre, run by Sinhasane, in 2012 which was located near their tea stall.

• When Sanket started training he had a hectic schedule. In an interview, while describing his routine he said,
  

  While I started weight-lifting training, I also had to help him at the tea stall. My day would start at 6am at the shop, where I would prepare the items for the day before going for my training. After school, I would manage the paan joint also.”

• In 2017, he started training under coach Mayur Sinhasane, Nana Sinhasane’s son.

• Sanket first dreamt about winning a Commonwealth Games medal when he saw Gururaja Poojary winning a silver medal in the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games on TV while managing the tea stall.

• When the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted Sanket’s training, Mayur sent him a barbell and squat set to train at home. As Sanket used to train on the first floor, he had to do it cautiously. However, he suffered a back injury at that time.

• In an interview, he revealed that he had entertained thoughts of quitting the sport during the lockdown due to the family’s shutdown business and his back injury. He said,
  

  It was a time (lockdown) when I thought about quitting the sport. There was almost no business at my father’s tea-stall and the practice at home meant that I suffered a back injury. But my father kept motivating me by showing old newspaper clips of my medal winning performances.”

• When he arrived in Bhubaneswar to compete in the 2022 IWLF Youth, Junior & Senior National Weightlifting Championships, he weighed 1.7 kilos more than the permissible limit and had to reduce his weight immediately to be eligible to compete.

• Before he joined the national weightlifting camp in Patiala, Sargar lent his parents a hand in running the family-owned tea stall in Sangli, Maharashtra.

• At the national camp, he trained under Vijay Sharma and Olympic silver medalist Mirabai Chanu.

• During his third attempt in clean and jerk at Commonwealth Games 2022, Sanket tried to lift a weight of 139 kg, but he failed to do so and suffered an injury on his right hand. However, he secured a silver medal, becoming India’s first medallist at CWG 2022.

  

• In an interview, he revealed that he wanted to compete in the 61kg category in the 2024 Olympics. He said,
  

  I want to make it to the 2024 Olympics and will have to move to 61kg. It will be a huge jump and it will take me two years to be fully prepared for it, but I’m determined to get there.”