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From INR 200-a-day labourer to CWG silver medallist: Rishikanta Singh's incredible rise
It was India's second medal of the Games and the first-ever Commonwealth Games medal won by a male weightlifter from Manipur.
Manipur weightlifter Rishikanta Singh turned a story of hardship into a Commonwealth Games silver medal on Sunday, adding a rare chapter to Indian men's weightlifting history. The 28-year-old lifted a combined 264kg (121kg snatch, 143kg clean and jerk) in the men's 60kg category at Glasgow's Armadillo Arena to finish behind Malaysia's Mohammad Aniq Kasdan.
For a brief period, Rishikanta looked set to pull off a stunning gold. His 121kg snatch not only gave him the lead but also set a new Commonwealth Games record. However, the momentum shifted in the clean and jerk. He failed at 148kg, allowing Kasdan to move ahead. Desperate to reclaim top spot, Rishikanta raised the bar to 151kg for his final attempt, but could not complete the lift.
The silver was still historic. It was India's second medal of the Games and the first-ever Commonwealth Games medal won by a male weightlifter from Manipur. Yet the story behind that medal is arguably far more remarkable than the result itself.
For almost a year as a teenager, Rishikanta abandoned weightlifting and worked as a daily wage labourer at construction sites and as a helper at a roadside truck-stop diner after believing his sporting dream had ended.
"I had stopped most of my contact with my friends in the weightlifting community. It was as if my dream of being a top weightlifter and my future in the sport was over. I took whatever job I could. At that time I was just thinking where I would go to work next," he recalled in an interview with Sportstar.
The decision was all the more heartbreaking because Rishikanta had already shown immense promise. He won the national youth title in 2016 and followed it up with a bronze medal at the Junior Commonwealth Championships in Malaysia in 2017.
Hailing from Ngairangbam village in Manipur's Imphal West district, Rishikanta initially dreamt of becoming a footballer. A sports teacher spotted him during a village sports event held around Holi festivities and encouraged him to train at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) centre at Khuman Lampak Stadium in Imphal.
The son of a cab driver, Rishikanta cycled nearly 40 kilometres every day to attend training. He tried boxing, football and weightlifting before eventually settling on the latter. Despite limited attention towards men's weightlifting at the time, he quickly established himself as one of the state's brightest prospects.
Everything changed after the Junior Commonwealth Championships. Once he aged out of SAI's junior programme, there was no clear pathway to continue. With his family's finances stretched and a younger brother's education to support, Rishikanta chose survival over sport.
"I probably made between ₹150 and ₹200 a day," he recalled.
Almost all of it went towards supporting his brother.
"Even if I wasn't supporting my brother, it's not possible to get a good diet with milk and eggs at ₹200 a day. I wasn't even sure I'd make that much in a day. I was just eating whatever was at home, and sometimes that meant skipping breakfast or dinner."
Then came the phone call that transformed his career. Manipur Weightlifting Federation secretary Sunil Elangbam contacted him and offered him a place at the newly opened Weightlifting Centre of Excellence in Takyel. That, Rishikanta said, was the turning point.
Back in a structured training environment with proper nutrition, he rebuilt his career rapidly. Within a year, he captured his first senior national title, a performance that also earned him a job with the Indian Navy, finally providing the financial stability that had long eluded him.
Since then, his rise has been steady. He finished 11th at the 2025 World Championships while setting a new national record and improved further at the 2025 Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships.
Glasgow marked his second Commonwealth Games appearance after making his debut in Birmingham in 2022. In 2023, he struck gold in the men's 60kg category at the Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships in Ahmedabad, setting a national record with a total lift of 271kg—still his personal best—and securing qualification for Glasgow.
He had travelled to Scotland hoping to return with gold and, for a while on Sunday, looked destined to achieve it. The title eventually slipped away, but the silver medal around his neck told a story far bigger than the colour it carried. For Rishikanta, it wasn't just India's second medal of the Games, it was the reward for refusing to let adversity have the final say.
