In most international lifting events, the protocol is generally set - the lifters in Group B come, lift some decent weights, and whet the spectators' appetites before the big hitters come along in Group A and take the podium finishes. It's just how it always has been, the weights increasing considerably as we cross over from B to A, the elite lifters showing up when the spotlight is on them.
JULY 25: FULL SCHEDULE | INDIA'S CWG 2026 MEDAL TALLY | INDIA AT COMMONWEALTH GAMES | KEY DATES AT CWG 2026
The first three events from the para powerlifting event at the 2026 Commonwealth Games were no different. Across the women's lightweight, men's lightweight, and women's heavyweight categories, the medals were all taken by lifters in Group A.
In the fourth and last event, though, India's Jhandu Kumar did something special, bursting out of Group B and onto the podium with a lift of 190kg (worth 130.9 points). A bronze, India's first medal of the 2026 CWG, earned in the last event with Indian participation on day 1. What makes it special was that it was no fluke, no accident -- he had held the lead all through round 1 of Group A lifting, till the eventual gold medalist Riluwan Idris of Nigeria and eventual silver medalist Mathew Harding (England) had their second lifts of the day -- and in that lies Jhandu Kumar's magic.
In fact, such was his start, a 181kg lift worth 124.7 points (the tally that counts in para powerlifting is the points gained, a coefficient calculated using both the weight of the athlete involved, and the weight they have lifted) that that one lift would still have been enough for bronze. Coming out of the shadows, Jhandu Kumar had stunned the field. He'd entered Group B with the clear intention of medaling, not just to be a statistic happy with just being there on the big stage, but an athlete who was determined to showcase himself, his story, his talent on said big stage. And he had done just that.
For those who know Jhandu Kumar it wouldn't have been a surprise. After all, this is a man used to doing the implausible.
The now barrel chested Jhandu had caught polio when he was five, affecting both his legs as he grew up in Harnaut (Nalanda district), Bihar. The lack of lower limb mobility, though, didn't dull his love for sport, and Jhandu started working on becoming a para-athlete who focused on shot put and javelin. Sustained spells in the gym to build upper body strength for the throws, though, converted him into a disciple of the iron and he got very good at it, very fast.
If the base fact of that sounds hard, add onto them the circumstances. His father had a vegetable shop, and to earn enough to keep training going, he had to pitch in. "Every day I used to travel 20km to Bihar Sharif to buy vegetables, bring them back and sell them in the market" he told the Times of India ahead of the start of the Games. "After finishing work around 4pm, I would go to the gym for training."
���� JHANDU KUMAR CLINCHES INDIA'S FIRST MEDAL OF THE 2026 COMMONWEALTH GAMES��
With a sensational lift of 190kg on his second lift, he finished in third place and became India's first and only medalist from Day 1. What a moment! ��
▶️ Read here for live updates from Commonwealth... pic.twitter.com/mbs3MDE8Ly
- ESPN India (@ESPNIndia) July 24, 2026
That worked for a while, even if it strained finances, until the family had to close their shop temporarily due to public civil works nearby. That was when Jhandu started driving a toto (an e-rikshaw) - the money was better, but the hours longer and that started affecting his training. The moment his family was able to open their shop again, Jhandu took a massive gamble: selling his toto to both free up his time, and more importantly, fund training for (and travel to) the 2023 National Para Powerlifting Championships.
At the New Delhi competition, he finished dead last, with zero successful lifts. All thoughts of how good he was had vanished but powerlifting coach Rajinder Singh Rahelu spotted a rare determination in Jhandu and asked him to come along and train with him at SAI's National Centre of Excellence in Gandhinagar.
It was the breakthrough, and focused attention, that Jhandu had desperately needed. He won Khelo India silver later that year, before taking off nationally and internationally, winning medals at meets across and a Khelo India gold (with a national record lift of 206kg) meant he became the first Bihari para-athlete to represent India at a CWG.
On Friday, as a disappointing day for Indian athletes wound down, Jhandu would do one better: participant bumped up to medal winner. His 190kg lift caused tremors in Group A and it took an exceptional performance from 21-year-old Nigerian prodigy Riluwan Idris (best lift of 208kg, worth 132.8 points) along with Englishman Mathew Harding pushing himself to the limit with a 199kg lift (131.0 points) to edge Jhandu (130.9 points, remember) down to bronze.
As a wide smile spread across the Indian's face when the bronze was confirmed and the cameras panned to him backstage, the importance of these at-time maligned Games were well and truly underlined. For all the medals he might have won across different competitions -- golds even -- this Commonwealth Games bronze would bring him more attention than all the others combined, and with it more glory, more recognition. The smile was a reiteration of the fact that for athletes like Jhandu Kumar, the Commonwealth Games means that much more.
When the medals were awarded, and the athletes huddled together for the post-medal-ceremony photos, the smile grew even wider. And why not? The child who hadn't let polio drag him down, the boy who had worked harder than most to keep a fledgling dream alive, the man who had risked it all to chase said dream... all of them had just been given a bright bronze stamp of vindication.
