How CWG champion Achinta Sheuli scripted his weightlifting career from absolutely nothing

At the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham, weightlifter Achinta Sheuli lifted a Games record of 313kg to win the gold medal in the men’s 73kg category.

It was the culmination of many years of hard work. However, for Achinta Sheuli, weightlifting was not designed for him naturally.

“You need to have a target in life,” Achinta said. “Many like to go to the gym to impress girls. I wanted to fight (to achieve in weightlifting) as my family background was not too good.”

Who is Achinta Sheuli

Achinta Sheuli was born November 24, 2001. He grew up in Deulpur, a town a couple of hours away from Kolkata. His elder brother Alok was a weightlifter and introduced him to the sport in a bid to make the shy youngster open up.

When he was nine, Achinta won local tournaments but never stood out and was not particularly interested in the sport. In 2013, his father, a labourer whose income ran the family of four, died.

Initially, Achinta’s mother Purnima worked two jobs to sustain the family but on realising it was not enough, his brother Alok soon pitched in. Young Achinta also began working as the family strived to earn enough for two square meals a day.

The trio did embroidery work for women’s clothes in Kolkata - which required handcrafted expertise, designs and attention to detail which machines could not achieve.

It was then that Alok - who gave up his own weightlifting career to help sustain the family - implored Achinta to view weightlifting as a way out of their situation.

“I thought he could make a future for himself with the sport,” Alok told Sportstar. “I knew people could get jobs through it. I used to tell him we don’t have anything. The only place where we count for something is through sport.

“If you play well, you can make a name for yourself. If you work hard and perform, people will remember who you are,” Alok said.

Help also came in the form of his coach Astam Das, who lived close to the family and would often provide food and equipment for Achinta when he could not afford it.

Achinta Sheuli had a rigorous routine for a 12-year-old - he would do embroidery work in the morning, undergo a training session, then attend school, go through another training session and would end the day with more embroidery work.

The break Achinta Sheuli was looking for came in 2014.

Commonwealth Games 2022 champion

At the 2014 junior nationals, Achinta Sheuli came fourth in his event. Though he did not win a medal, a coach at Pune’s Army Sports Institute spotted his talent and invited him to shift there to train.

The streamlined training and diet plan energised Achinta, who won bronze at the 2015 Youth National Games and a silver in the Youth Commonwealth Games in Samoa the same year. He also moved up from the 50kg class, having received better nutrition, allowing him to build his body.

He joined the national camp in 2018 and the medals kept coming - Achinta won silver at the 2018 Asian Youth Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and won golds in both the junior and senior categories at the 2019 Commonwealth Championships in Samoa.

The financial burden on his family also eased as Achinta Sheuli became a havaldar with the Indian Army and also got a monthly stipend after winning gold at the 2018 Khelo India Youth Games in New Delhi.

Achinta Sheuli became the 73kg national champion in 2019 and was identified as a potential medal winner at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Achinta Sheuli continued his solid run with another gold at the 2021 Commonwealth Championships in Tashkent and became the first Indian man to win a medal at the junior world championships, with a silver in Jeddah in 2021.

Achinta’s crowning achievement came on August 1, 2022, when he lifted a record 313kg - 143kg in the snatch, a personal best, and 170kg in the clean-and-jerk - to win the gold medal on his debut at the Commonwealth Games.

The Indian weightlifter was set to compete at the world championships 2022 in Bogota, Colombia, but had to pull out due to injury.