As Rishikanta Singh Chanambam stepped onto the platform for the men’s 60kg weightlifting competition at Commonwealth Games in Glasgow on Sunday, his biggest supporters gathered around a mobile phone over 7,000km away in Uttarlai, Barmer, Rajasthan.Although Rishikanta hails from Ngairangbam Makha Maning Leikai in Manipur’s Imphal West district, his parents have been living with his elder brother, Amarjit Singh, in Rajasthan for the past few months. His father is undergoing treatment for blood cancer at AIIMS Jodhpur, where he has already completed three rounds of chemotherapy and is responding well.Even as Rishikanta lifted a combined 264kg to claim the silver medal, thoughts of his father were never far from his mind.“We have had a very difficult life, and I’ve always tried to make him smile because I never got to spend much time with him,” Rishikanta said during an exclusive interaction with TOI. “The last time I went home, I even took him to a scooter showroom so he could finally buy one for himself.”Looking after his family, however, has been a priority for Rishikanta since childhood.“I used to work as a daily-wage labourer with some of my friends,” the 28-year-old recalled. “I worked for about two to three months. I wasn’t a skilled worker, so I mostly helped with whatever work was available and earned around ₹150 a day.”He initially took up the work to earn enough money to study in a private school like many of his friends. But as the family’s financial struggles deepened, the money he earned also went towards supporting the household.While both his parents worked as daily-wage labourers on other people’s farms, his father also worked as a taxi driver to supplement the family’s income. Even then, they struggled to provide for a family of six — the parents, two sons and two daughters.“We don’t even own farmland,” said Amarjit, who has been serving in the Indian Air Force since 2012. “Our parents worked on other people’s fields to earn a living.”The family’s fortunes began to change only after Amarjit secured a job. Until then, every rupee mattered, and Rishikanta’s dream often depended on his elder brother’s support. “My elder brother is like my second father,” Rishikanta said. “There was a time when I had no income. He paid for my training and competitions. Whatever I am today is because of him.”Amarjit never thought twice before helping, and today he could not be prouder of what his younger brother has achieved.As for Rishikanta’s sporting journey, it began after a veteran coach persuaded the family to send him for trials at National Sports Academy in Imphal. He earned selection and spent his formative years there under Brojendro Singh before progressing through the Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) system.The road, however, was anything but smooth. After ageing out of the academy, he was forced to stay at home for several months without training before coaches and officials helped him resume his career at SAI National Centre of Excellence. He later joined Indian Navy in 2019, which provided him with financial security before breaking into the national camp. Over the past two years, he has trained under chief national coach Vijay Sharma in Modinagar.Ironically, weightlifting wasn’t Rishikanta’s first love.“My dream was to become a boxer,” he said. “I even trained in boxing for a while because I admired the sport after watching Dingko Singh. But once I started competing in weightlifting and won a tournament, I realised this was where I belonged.”That decision transformed his life.Having narrowly missed out on a medal at the previous Commonwealth Games, Rishikanta looked set to crown his journey with gold in Glasgow after setting a CWG record of 121kg in the snatch. But a lingering knee injury, which had troubled him for weeks leading up to the competition, limited him in the clean and jerk, leaving him with silver. The medal, however, made him the first male weightlifter from Manipur to stand on the Commonwealth Games podium.“I believe I could have won gold if I had been fully fit,” Rishikanta admitted. “The injury didn’t allow me to train the way I wanted before the competition.”For Rishikanta, however, the silver represented far more than a medal. It was a tribute to parents who spent years working as labourers to keep the family afloat, an elder brother he still calls his “second father”, and the promise of a young boy who once earned ₹150 a day as a labourer that he would one day make all their sacrifices worthwhile.
