Nooh targets World Open, World Games

After breaking Asian powerlifting record, he wants world titles in 2025

KARACHI:

Pakistan's history-making athlete Nooh Dastgir is now setting his eyes on the World Classic Open Powerlifting Championships and World Games after debuting at the Asian Powerlifting Championship in Uzbekistan this week.

"I am targeting the World Classic Open Powerlifting Championships in Germany and World Games that will take place in China next year, so after Asian exposure," Nooh told this correspondent from Tashkent. "My goal is to win the medal on the world stage next. I will not go for anything less than a gold medal, but it will be a tough competition. So all of my focus will be on these events."

He returned from Uzbekistan with a gold and silver medal on Friday and will now get back to his hometown, Gujranwala, where he will begin training for the world events to win nothing less than a gold medal for Pakistan.

Nooh created the Asian record with a 400 kg lift in his +120 kg category squat in Tashkent despite injuries he picked up during the competition. He won silver medal in benchpress. He wants to improve on his weights as he feels he made a significant improvement from his debut powerlifting event in October, the Commonwealth Championships to the Asian Powerlifting Championship.

"I feel I have made a significant improvement, but I need to work more, I am capable of winning the gold medals at the World Games as well. I have lifted 400 kg now, I have to improve it by 50-70 kgs to win a medal there, and I feel that is very manageable," said Nooh.

The 26-year-old pivoted to powerlifting from weightlifting due to controversies surrounding the Pakistan Weightlifting Federation (PWF). It has parallel bodies while several weightlifters have tested positive for doping in the last three years.

Nooh and his brother, Hanzala are guided and coached by their multi-South Asian Games gold medallist father, Ghulam Dastgir Butt, and they have been facing persecution by the Pakistan Olympic Association-backed faction that has also bn reprimanded by the International Testing Agency.

With politics at play, Nooh was deprived of continuing his path to the Paris Olympics after breaking the record and winning the gold medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Hi was left with no choice but to shift his focus.

"I had to do something, I was not allowed to compete, and now I feel weightlifting has left my body, i feel that way, but I am happy that I am making my country proud in powerlifting," said Nooh.

When asked if the switch was difficult he added that it was not, "I used to do powerlifting as a part of my training while I was weightlifting so this is not something that I am new at. It is just that I am competing internationally in it. I am making my name from scratch in that way," he explained.

His father said that the key for Nooh is to stay motivated.

"This powerlifting journey is a journey of constraints and necessitation, and I am very proud of Nooh," his father added. "We had to shift our focus on something else when weightlifting was taken away from him. This is necessary to keep him on his path. Who knows we can still find a way to compete at the 2028 Olympics as well.

"I began my journey when I was a 15-year-old, winning my first national weightlifting gold medal, from then on I went to win titles at the South Asian Games, and then I began coaching my children. But till he wins a medal at the Olympics I wouldn't be able to retire from the sport entirely.

"I have always told Nooh that the target is always the top place. I do not believe in silver and bronze medals, so when you perform, give a gold-medal-winning performance. You have a choice, to lift that weight or die under it."