Six men from city to represent India in Commonwealth Powerlifting Championship

Coimbatore: Six men from the city will represent India in the Commonwealth Powerlifting Championship to be held in South Africa on September 10. They are among the 72 selected from across the country based on their national championship rankings. More than 30 countries are expected to participate in the tournament.
“Under the senior category, V Vignesh Kumar, a railway department employee, has been selected to represent in 59kg tournament and M Ilango will represent in the 66kg category.In the junior’s category, P Bharath will take part in the 74kg category, T Manikandan will take part in 83kg, Venkatesa Prabhu in 93kg and P Ravishankar in 105kg. Venkatesa Prabhu and Ravishankar have won international medals in 2015 in Hong Kong in the Asian championships,” secretary of the Tamil Nadu Powerlifting Association Nagarajan said.
He said that this was the first time that six men from the city were selected for an international event and 10 were selected from Tamil Nadu. “Generally, not more than five are selected from a state,” he said. Apart from these six, the other three participants are from Salem, Nagapattinam and Tirunelveli.
The participants said that they had been working hard for the past five years for this and were extremely happy that they were selected for the championship.
The participants will travel to Mumbai for training and leave for Potchefstroom in South Africa on September 9. The tournament will go on till September 17.
Nagarajan told TOI that there was a surge in the youngsters taking up this sport after 2002 when a professional academy was set up in the city at Meena Estate.
“Last year, we could not go to Canada where the event was held due to visa issues. This time, we expect all of them to win medals,” said Nagarajan. Koteeswara Rao from Vishakapatnam, secretary of Andhra Pradesh Powerlifting Association, will accompany the team along with Nagarajan as coaches.