Pune woman wins three Gold medals at World Powerlifting Championship
Pune, December 17, 2019: Bhavna Tokekar of Pune, wife of Group Captain Sripad Tokekar won three Gold medals at World Powerlifting Championship at Moscow on 14& 15 th Dec 2019.
She bagged one medal each in Full Powerlifting, Raw Bench Press and Raw Dead Lift events in AWPC Classic Raw Masters 2 (45-49yrs) category in Under 67.5kg body weight bracket. She broke the existing World Record for maximum weight in bench press in Full Powerlifting event at Moscow on 14 Dec 2019. She bettered her total lift by 30 kg in Full Powerlifting to 297.5kg from her total of 267.5kg at Asian Championship at Chelyabinsk in July 2019. She improved by 10kgs in pure bench press, 15kg in squat and 22.5kgs in pure deadlift figures as compared to her lifts at the Asian Championship.
Her journey into this field started with weight training 7 &1/2 years back to keep fit and become stronger, both physically and mentally. Till this year beginning she had very little knowledge of Powerlifting as a competitive sport. She read about it on the social media (Facebook and Instagram). She got in touch with her current coach Mr Mohammed Azmatullah aka Azmat through Instagram. He is the one she credits for getting her into Powerlifting. He informed her about Masters category and selected her after a selection trial for the Asian Championship in May 2019. She credits WPC (India) and it’s President Daljeet Singh for providing her the platform to make India proud by being a member of the Indian squad.
She says, “I know I could have pushed the figures even further, but for some minor faults”. She believes that Life is a constant learning process and she’s not perfect either. Thats her motivation for the next meet. She aims to and will beat her current total in the next meet yet again. She is thankful to all her coaches, fans and well wishers for their encouragement all through since her Asian Championship win in July 2019.”