Kovilpatti weightlifter bags gold in Khelo India games

MADURAI: Tamil Nadu won 27 gold medals in the recently concluded Khelo India Youth games held in Pune. One of the most impressive individual gold medal performances for the state, according to the television commentators, was that of weightlifter S Rudra Mayan. The teenager from Kovilpatti in Tuticorin district won gold in the under -17 boys +102kg category- breaking existing national records in the process.
Rudra Mayan had a total of 269 kg (snatch-118kg, clean and jerk 151kg), a comfortable 11 kg above the previous national record.
The Class XI student of VOC boys government higher secondary school in Kovilpatti is already the state champion and won gold in the national school games too.
Rudra Mayan’s win should not come as a surprise as the teenager is the son of former national champion and commonwealth silver medalist, K.Sornamuthu.
Sornamuthu, who took to weightlifting only when he dropped out of school after Class X to secure a government job, readily offered all help he could to his son, when he wished to toe his father.
“When I was young, I used to watch old videos- of my father’s lifts in international and national meets and was inspired. I also used to assist him in our gym and asked him whether he would teach me too,” recalls Rudra Mayan.
His prowess in weightlifting landed Sornamuthu a job with the Indian Navy in 1985 and he participated in national and international meets until his retirement from the navy in 2000.
What was a means of securing a stable life for the father is now a much larger ambition for the son-- an Olympic gold. While not a certified coach, Sornamuthu, backed by the knowledge of all those years, started training his son from the age of 10.
“I am his coach, masseur and dietician,” said Sornamuthu. While talking about the young age in which Rudra Mayan started training, Sornamuthu drew parallel to countries like China, where children are put into rigorous training from an early age.
The 16-year-old trains three hours a day at the gym everyday with his father, who is lenient on him as far as academics are concerned.
The father and son are eyeing the 2028 Olympics and that is the target they are pursuing relentlessly.