People know me for two things: the mountains, and the barbell. The barbell part started with powerlifting — squat, bench, deadlift — and that is where I earned the name “Gujarat's Strongest Girl.” But over the last while, my training has been turning toward a different, older sport with a bigger dream attached to it: Olympic weightlifting.
Powerlifting and weightlifting sound like the same thing to most people. They are not. And the reason I am leaning into weightlifting is not because I love powerlifting any less — it is because of where weightlifting can take an athlete from India.
Powerlifting vs Olympic weightlifting
Quickly, for anyone who mixes them up:
- Powerlifting is three lifts — squat, bench press, deadlift. It is about raw strength: how much can you move, once.
- Olympic weightlifting is two lifts — the snatch and the clean and jerk. It is strength plus speed, plus a lot of technique. You are not just lifting a bar; you are throwing it overhead and catching it in a fraction of a second.
- The biggest difference for my future: weightlifting is an Olympic sport. Powerlifting, for now, is not.
Why the Olympic dream matters
In India, an Olympic sport opens doors that other sports cannot. There is government support, structured coaching pathways, national camps, and a real, official ladder to climb — district, state, national, international. For a young athlete, that pathway matters as much as talent. It means the hard work can actually lead somewhere all the way to representing the country.
That is the honest reason behind the shift. I want to keep getting stronger, yes — but I also want a road that goes as far as it can possibly go. Olympic weightlifting gives me that road.
What changes in training
Moving toward weightlifting changes how I train. The snatch and clean and jerk are technical lifts — they take years to refine. So my sessions now include far more skill work: speed under the bar, footwork, timing, mobility in the shoulders and hips, and catching heavy weight in deep positions.
My powerlifting base helps enormously here. All those squats and deadlifts built the raw strength that the Olympic lifts sit on top of. You cannot jerk a heavy bar overhead without a strong base underneath it. In a way, powerlifting was the foundation, and weightlifting is the building I am putting on it.
The mountain mindset, on the platform
Here is where the two halves of my life meet. On a mountain like Kang Yatse, you learn to do one hard, honest thing at a time and to stay calm when your body wants to quit. The Olympic lifts ask for exactly that. When a heavy bar is about to go overhead, panic is the enemy. Calm, trained, repeatable effort wins.
So the goal from here is simple to say and hard to do: keep climbing in the mountains, and keep chasing the Olympic platform on the barbell. National competitions first, then wherever the work takes me. I am fourteen. There is a long road ahead and I intend to walk all of it.