Nooh creates Asian Powerlifting history

KARACHI:

"This is my Asian Powerlifting debut really, and no one noticed me before, but now people are looking at me," Pakistan's star athlete and 2022 Commonwealth Games champion Nooh Dastgir exclaimed after he created history at the Asian Classic Powerlifting Championship, successfully despite shoulder injuries in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on Tuesday evening.

Nooh has been one of the most accomplished athletes Pakistan has seen in the last 15 years; however, he had to shift from weightlifting to powerlifting in survival mode.

The Pakistan Weightlifting Federation has been shrouded by doping controversy for the last three years and political powerplays among the officials have left honest athletes like Nooh in an impossible position. The federation's issues had also caused him to miss Paris Olympics participation.

Now he is making waves in the powerlifting world.

His latest exploits include a gold medal in +120 kg squats with a 400 kg lift and a silver medal in benchpress with his best result of 225 kg with his father, a multi-South Asian Games gold medallist Ghulam Dastgir by his side.

On Tuesday he outclassed Taipei's Pei-Yu Wang in the +120 kg men's squat competition of the category.

Seasoned powerlifter Wang held the previous record of the Asian championship squats with a lift of 393 kg last year, but Nooh, on his first appearance on the Asian level broke it.

"It feels great, I have been working very hard for this, and this is the first time any Pakistani has made an Asian record, so I am very pleased," Nooh told this correspondent from Tashkent on Wednesday afternoon as he was preparing for a meet-up with the Pakistani diplomats at the embassy. "I am so happy that I made the progress, and although it was good I still feel I could have done more."

"I was going for a 400 kg lift." Nooh's former best was 390 kg in squats. "But on my second attempt, I couldn't hold on and my weights fell right behind me, this left my left shoulder in pain. I could feel it and I reckon there can be a tissue injury.

"From my second attempt, which went awry, I wanted to make sure I lifted the 400-kg target successfully in the third and final attempt, which I am glad I did.

"However, I could feel the damage it had done. It was also a bit tough because I entered this competition with a troublesome right shoulder. I had picked up an injury during the training. So my the middle of the competition I was facing challenges, also my nails were hurting after a point as well," said Nooh.

Nooh gave tough competition to Wang in benchpress too, starting from a 210 kg lift and improving it to 225 kg by his third attempt.

Russia's Andrei Konovalov, who was competing as a neutral individual, ended up taking the overall total gold medal (955 kg) and benchpress medal (255 kg), while Wang was second in the overall total with 942.5 kg, while the space created by Nooh in the deadlift gave way to Sri Lanka's Prasantha Satkunarajah, who finished third in the overall total with 830 kg and in deadlift with 310 kg.

Nooh made his international powerlifting debut in October where he won gold medals at the Commonwealth Powerlifting Championships in both classic and equipped competitions in South Africa.

Nooh began preparing for the Asian title right after the Commonwealth Championship. He has been guided by his father, but there has been no support for him from the government or sports authorities. His participation at the Asian championship was also made possible by a private sponsorship from a former weightlifter from Balochistan Arshad Khan.

"There has been no support, no financial support for travel expenses or training, my father has helped me through it, but we also found great support from Arshad, he came at a very crucial moment to back me and without him, coming here would have been difficult," explained Nooh.