58-year-old weightlifter from Nuh wins gold in national championship

Abid Hussain, a resident of Nuh, has won a gold medal in the 81kg category of the weightlifting competition during the third national Masters’ Games held in Vadodara from February 5-9.

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The 58-year-old retired this January after teaching at a school in Mewat for two decades. Speaking on why he took up weightlifting, Hussain said, “As a kid studying in Nuh, there were not many games I could play. We didn’t have a playground so some of my friends used to practice weightlifting. That’s how I became interested,” Hussain said. In Nuh, sportspersons don’t receive any support from the local authorities, so if a player has to take part in any national or international games, it has to be at their own cost, Hussain added.

Hussain belongs to a family of weightlifters. His father, Jamil Ahmed, is a former chief security guard at the State Bank of India and his three brothers are weightlifters too. “I always wanted to be a weightlifter but my family’s financial situation was such that I was forced to take up a job as a primary school teacher in Nuh. Even as a teacher, I was not able to leave weightlifting,” Hussain said.

Speaking about his training as a weightlifter, Hussain said that he was mocked. “There is a small park near my house. I practice there. Children would often laugh at me—’let’s see if this old man can lift weights’. It’s only once I would pick up the weights that their giggles would turn into silence. Most kids who mocked me initially are training under me now,” Hussain said.

Post-retirement, Hussain spends most of his time training interested children. “It gives me satisfaction to see these kids passionate about the game,” he said. The weightlifter said that by winning medals at this age he wanted to do away with the myth that weightlifting involved a lot of risk and injuries. “If you lift the weights properly and your posture is right, the chances of getting injured are minimal,” he said.

This is not the first time Hussain has participated in a major sporting event. In 2018, he won a gold medal in the 77kg category of the weightlifting competition in Asia Pacific Masters Games (APMG), which was held in Penang, Malaysia. “I have represented Haryana in the 1982 Asiad in Delhi and many other international events,” he said.

The third national Masters’ Games 2020 was organised by the Masters Games Federation, India, in which participants were above 30 years of age.