Arunachal Pradesh’s Sambo Lapung conquered his love for fast food to break fellow Services lifter Vikas Thakur’s three-year-old clean and jerk record and claim the men’s 96kg gold medal at the weightlifting arena of the National Games here on Monday.
Representing his State, 25-year-old Sambo achieved 148kg in snatch and 198kg in his final clean jerk attempt, a kg more than Vikas’ previous record, to total 346kg and beat Services’ Jagdish by 15kg.
A boxer-turned-lifter who took to lifting to avoid punishment from his boxing coach, Sambo’s performance was 10kg more than that of his own gold medal winning aggregate of 336kg in the national championships in Bhubaneswar in March.
“I came here to compete with myself and had one eye on the record,” Sambo said.
Sambo’s coach Yukar Sibi said he was strict about the lifter’s diet.
“Sambo is a lover of fast food and was disqualified from the 2021 Nationals for being overweight. So I kept an eye on his diet. We had been targeting this record for some time,” said Sibi.
Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Lovepreet Singh aggregated 338kg, way below his showing of 355kg in Birmingham, to ensure the 109kg gold before skipping his last two attempts.
Comments
SHARE