Who are top five all-time greatest Indian Weightlifters?

India has recently started to show dominance in the sport.

India has produced several weightlifters in the past and has been an important member of the Commonwealth contingent. In the 2022 Commonwealth games, India won medals in almost all the weight categories. Slowly India has started to show dominance on the World stages as well with Mirabai Chanu becoming the second Indian to win a medal at the Olympic games after Karnam Malleswari. In this article let us find out the top five weightlifters of all time from India:

Kunjarani Devi

Kunjarani Devi from Manipur is one of the most decorated sportswomen in weightlifting from India. She contested her career majorly in the 44kg and 46kg weight categories but during the fag end of her career increased her weight to the 48kg category. She started winning medals at the National Championships in 1985 but her first major success was winning the silver medal at the World Championships in 1989. Since then Kunjarani Devi has won a record seven medals (all silver) at the World Championships the most by an Indian (male and female).

Kunjarani Devi has also dominated the sport at the continental level winning two bronze medals at the Asian Games along with winning a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games. After an illustrious career, she won several awards - Arjuna Award, Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, and Padma Shri (India’s fourth-highest civilian award) in 2011. She was also the coach of the Indian weightlifting team at the 2014 Commonwealth Games held in Scotland.

Saikhom Mirabai Chanu

Mirabai Chanu is one of the only two weightlifters from India to win a medal at the Olympics. Her first major impactful performance came at the 2017 World Championships where she won the gold medal in the 48kg weight category and since then has won several medals at both the Continental and Commonwealth Games. Mirabai Chanu first took part in the 2016 Rio Olympics but couldn't produce a result with three unsuccessful lifts in the clean & jerk section.

She came back stronger in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to open India’s medal tally by winning the silver medal. Chanu is the current National Record holder in the 48kg category with a tally of 205kg (snatch + clean&jerk). 

Major Achievements

Commonwealth Games (Gold - 2018,2022  Silver - 2014)

World Championships (Gold - 2017)

Asian Championships (Bronze - 2020)

Tokyo Olympics (Silver - 2020) 

Karnam Malleswari

Karnam Malleswari from Andhra Pradesh became the first Indian weightlifter to win a medal at the Olympic Games (2000 Sydney). She had an illustrious career winning medals at four editions of the World Championships. Karnam majorly contested in the 54kg weight category where she had won all her World Championship medal but shifted to 69kg at the end. 

The Olympic bronze medallist was coached by legendary Leonid Taranenko who held the record for lifting 266kg in the 110+ kg weight category back in 1988. The record was finally broken in 2021 by Lasha Talakhadze at the World Championships. Karnam Malleswari has won several awards including the Arjuna, Khel Ratna, and Padma Shri.

Sathish Sivalingam

Sathish Sivalingam from Tamil Nadu has won several awards at the International level and is one of the most successful male weightlifters from India. To date, Sathish has won two Commonwealth gold medals (2014 and 2018) along with winning four Commonwealth Championships gold medals all in the 77kg weight category. 

Sathish could only qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics in a career spanning over a decade where he finished 11th out of 14 weightlifters. He was bestowed with the Arjuna award in 2015.

Ekabaram Karunakaran

Ekabaram Karunakaran was the first Indian weightlifter (men and woman) to win a gold medal in International competition at the 1978 Commonwealth Games held in Toronto, Canada. In a career spanning over a decade, Karunakaran majorly competed in the flyweight category. Apart from winning medals at the Commonwealth games, Karunakaran has won medals at Pakistan National Games, New Zealand Summer Games, and World Railway Games.

Upon hearing the news of Karunakaran winning a medal at the Commonwealth Games the government assured to build up a Railway station for his village.