World Championship: Pune woman powerlifter bags 3 golds

Bhavna Tokekar of Pune won three gold medals at World Powerlifting Championship held at Moscow recently. Bhavna bagged one medal each in Full Powerlifting, Raw Bench Press and Raw Dead Lift events in the AWPC Classic Raw Masters 2 (45-49 years) category in under 67.5 kg body weight bracket.

The 47-year-old, who is the mother of two teenagers, broke the existing World Record for maximum weight in Bench Press in Full Powerlifting. She bettered her total lift by 30 kg in Full Powerlifting to 297.5 kg from her total of 267.5 kg at the Asian Championship at Chelyabinsk in July 2019. She improved by 10 kg in Pure Bench Press, 15 kg in Squat and 22.5 kg in Pure Deadlift figures as compared to her lifts at the Asian Championship.

Her journey into this field started with weight training seven-and-a-half-years back. Her aim was to keep herself fit physically and mentally. In the beginning of the year, she had very little knowledge of powerlifting as a competitive sport. She read about it on social media platforms Facebook and Instagram and got in touch with her current coach, Mohammed Azmatullah aka Azmat, through Instagram.

He is the one she credits for her getting into powerlifting. He informed her about the Masters category and chose her after a selection trial for the Asian Championship in May 2019.
She is thankful to WPC (India) and its president Daljeet Singh for providing her the platform to make India proud. Bhavna says, "I know I could have pushed the figures even further, but for some minor faults".

She believes that life is a constant learning process and aims to beat her current total in the next meet.