Behind gold medal at Junior World Championship, lifter Harshada’s story of grit & a 50-kg rice sack

Harshada was encouraged to take up weightlifting by her father and his maternal uncle, both of whom nurtured dreams of competing internationally but never could.

HARSHADA GARUD recalls the buzz that day when as a 12-year-old, she casually walked up to a 50-kg rice sack, lifted it on her back and coolly set it down, dusting off her palms, ready for the next one. She was in Class 8, and had seen her father struggling to lug the sacks into their house in Wadgaon village.

“I didn’t think much of it then,” she says. Six years on, Harshada has become the first Indian to win a weightlifting gold in the Junior World Championship.

On Monday, the 18-year-old from Maval taluka in Pune maxed her snatch effort (70 kg) for an overall winning lift of 153 kg in the 49-kg category to pip Turkey’s Bektas Kansu (150 kg) in Heraklion, Greece. “I was sure of a medal, but gold is the real thing,” she says.