The big gold dream to end small town crime: Why Sanket Sagar desperately wanted gold at Commonwealth Games

“Gold toh lena hi lena tha. Toh risk lena hi tha na!” (Gold had to be taken, risks had to be taken) Sanket would say, his right arm ligaments loosely held together in gauze and strappings to last the medal ceremony after an injury to the forearm and elbow, ended in Malaysian Mohammad Aniq Bin Qasdan leapfrogging over him for a gold snatched off the last lift with a CWG record of 142 kg (total 249 kg). Sanket was just 1 kg behind with 248 (113 + 135). “Completing the lift was important so I didn’t risk Snatch, but maybe I could’ve done more than 113 kg,” he said later.

Sanket remained downcast, the missed gold, the vamoosed opportunity of a gold simply not making way for the joy of his first ever Commonwealth Games silver. “My district Sangli only has had wrestler Maruti Mane who won internationally. Noone after him. I had to, had to win gold. But I’m very disappointed I couldn’t. Had worked for it for 4 years. Chhodna nai tha medal,(shouldn’t have let it go)“ he repeated.

Many congratulations to #SanketSargar for winning the Silver medal in weightlifting at the CWG 2022.

You have made entire India immensely proud. Your grit to achieve success will keep inspiring the youth of India to always aspire for excellence. pic.twitter.com/E7DQU5yNL1

— T S Singhdeo (@TS_SinghDeo) July 30, 2022

Describing the scenes when his first attempt at 137 kg – his second lift of Clean & Jerk – wobbled down, with Sanket in visible wincing pain on the overhead extension, the 22-year-old said there was no dilemma in his head about going for gold, even at risk of breaking his hand, which he might well have. “Sir was telling me, it’s going to pain a lot. They were worried. But hum iske liye jeete hai. (We live for this). I had to,” he said about the wild second go at the weight.

The Malaysian who his Sangli coach Mayur Sinhasane had kept an eye on through the South East Asian Games, was about to pull a fast one literally. Dangling a challenge, with an intent of 140 kg on C&J, he pegged back to 138 on his opener, before lifting a monster 142 kg to rub it in, on his final lift, even as Sanket’s arm gave way under him.

“Suddenly the load came on my hand,” Sanket would say about the doomed concentric at 137 kg. “I heard something snap in my hand,” he would say, still traumatized by the memory a 30 minutes later.

At his Digvijay Vyayamshala in Sangli, lifters are encouraged to say Jai Hind before loading every lift, to respect the equipment, to think of sport as a duty to the nation. Neighbouring Kolhapur has produced several sportspeople of international renown, and was more prominent in the national freedom struggle. Sangli, more modest and in a proper shadow, on the other hand, has watched with envy and hoped to kick off a sporting resurgence of its own through a handful of weightlifting clubs.

1⃣st Medal for India 🇮🇳 !

Kudos to #SanketSargar for opening #India’s medal tally with a #SILVER 🥈in #weightlifting🏋️‍♂️at the #CommonwealthGames 2022.

🇮🇳 is Proud of your remarkable achievement!

Wishing Golden success in future events!#CWG22 #CWG2022India #B2022 #Cheer4India pic.twitter.com/zXepdUd761

— Prakash Javadekar (@PrakashJavdekar) July 30, 2022

Shinde maala, mired in criminal activities, had two internationals, Basheer Shaikh and Sunil Naik, from the locality tried to break through in the 1980s and 1990s, but none could medal. “Silvers can be forgotten. Gold are memorable, but it’s never easy to win,” coach Sinhasane says, about the heartbreak of coming second, something he states Sangli felt with respect to Kolhapur. Something the hapless residents of Shinde maala felt when they watched big banks like SBI come up in huge towers all around them, while their locality remained stagnant.

Sargar had spent a season painfully rehabbing from an elbow injury as a junior, and in what will give him a sense of helpless deja vu, will need more of that resilience again. Life will be back to beetroot-carrot juices his coach prepares, egg and whey blitzed in a mixer and heavy water intake, as he deals with yet another setback. “I want to come back for gold,” he would say later.

Sanket Sargar had an eventful lockdown training time. Police permanently camped around Shinde maala owing to its greasy grimy reputation, were even more baton-happy, to fix local lurkers and rowdy youth breaking pandemic rules. “Cops would strike them with dandaa first and then ask reasons for why they were loitering outside. That’s the reputation. So transferring barbells to Sanket’s home was an almighty headache.

“We contacted a friend of mine in the police, and asked them only to escort the barbell equipment to Sanket’s home in Shinde maala! So it was carried in a police vehicle,” Sinhasane recalls. Sanket’s father runs a tea and snacks stall, and his sister is training to be a lifter too – her recent medals bringing a positive spotlight to the maligned ‘badnaam’ locality.

When we ask why this young man in visible pain craved the gold enough to risk a broken arm, it was this intense desire to leave behind the notoriety of where he comes from. It was to paint a community gold. A silver at Birmingham will give Shinde maala something more: the hope of a gold, a goal to aspire for.