For a man who couldn\u2019t get a hang of how to lift the bar for the longest time, weightlifter P Gururaja said he hasn\u2019t done too badly for himself as he reflected on the silver around his neck that opened India\u2019s medal account in the 21st Commonwealth Games today.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old, hailing from a small village in Karnataka, could hardly stop smiling as he soaked in the attention that came with being the ceremonial account-opener at the quadrennial event.<\/p>\n
The moment didn\u2019t come easy, as his first two attempts in clean and jerk had been declared invalid and he was under tremendous pressure in the final attempt.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter I failed the first two attempts, my coach reminded me how much my life depends on this. I remembered my family and my country,\u201d he said when asked what went through his mind in those nervy moments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started in 2010, in the first month of my training, I was so frustrated because I didn\u2019t even know how to lift a bar. It was too heavy for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
That is hardly something an aspiring weightlifter would complain of, only that Gururaja aspired to be a wrestler, inspired by a certain Sushil Kumar.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember I had seen Sushil Kumar wrestle in the 2010 CWG, I was just starting weightlifting at that time. When I saw him I really wanted to take up wrestling. Then I met my coach Rajendra Prasad who taught me weightlifting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was trying to be a 42kg category wrestler and it seemed impossible to me. Eventually I got a hang of it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
An employee of the Indian Air Force, Gururaja has seen all the proverbial hardships of life that athletes from humble backgrounds endure in India. Having watched his truck driver father slog hard to raise eight children, Gururaja is determined to give his family a good life.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy family was on my mind when I failed the two attempts in clean and jerk, it meant a lot to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asked whether he would still be interested in giving wrestling a shot, Gururaja broke into a laughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For a man who couldn\u2019t get a hang of how to lift the bar for the longest time, weightlifter P Gururaja said he hasn\u2019t done too badly for himself as he reflected on the silver around his neck that opened India\u2019s medal account in the 21st Commonwealth Games today. The 25-year-old, hailing from a small […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27005,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27006,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27004\/revisions\/27006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}