Weight of honour

Imagine this: you are a sportsperson who has just burst onto the international scene. And bam! You have now won the world championship. Unbelievable, right? Well, that is exact what happened to Chennai-based gym instructor and kettlebell lifter, Vignesh Hariharan, whose gold medal at the World Kettlebell Championship that recently concluded in Melbourne, Australia, has become a matter of national pride.

It all started five years ago when Vignesh was at a workshop where he saw two demonstrators lift kettlebells. “I wanted to learn something new and that is how it all started,” he says.

Soon enough, his willpower and persistence were taking him places. Last year, he won a gold medal at the Asian Kettlebell Championship — quite the feat in itself. But as they say, the sky is the limit, so he set his gaze on the grand prize. “I wanted to fight for something bigger than I did in Asia,”  Vignesh reveals.

With his goal in mind, he trained for the biathlon (involving two events) where he had to shift between weights of 16kg and 24kg (the weight of a filled gas cylinder!). He had to lift these for 10 minutes, non-stop, without resting his hipbone on the ground. He scored a good 61 points here, before competing in the other event — the kettlebell snatch — where he scored 93 repetitions, giving him a total tally of 154. It read ‘world champion’.

“It was a very emotional moment when on foreign soil, the Indian national anthem was played exclusively for me,” shares Vignesh, further adding what a dream it had been and that he was reduced to tears. For him, it still seems like yesterday.

If the world championship was not enough, guess what? He is the first person from South India to win a kettlebell championship, and that too on his first attempt. Beat that!

Even after five years, the champion is as much charmed by the sport as he was at the beginning. He finds the anatomy of the kettlebell unique as its centre of gravity lies at the bell’s centre. He continues, “Kettlebells use only momentum and you have to do a lot of repetitions with them; a factor that really attracted me to the equipment. It is like handling a tool that is extremely versatile as it strengthens and improves your cardiovascular efficiency, and it also improves your endurance.”

Yet, not many engage with the equipment as they, well, happen to fear it. “People find it difficult to use because they don’t know how to use it. The fear is of getting injured, and that happens when they do not spend enough time analysing the equipment and using it efficiently,” the weightlifter believes.

Another misconception is that weightlifters need to eat meat for protein. Bursting that bubble, Vignesh says, “A lot of people who are vegetarian or vegan feel that they do not possess the strength to lift weights,” before adding that he is a vegetarian who has been lifting weights for more than 10 years. He continues, “I wanted to break that myth. Initially, I failed miserably in bodybuilding competitions because I was in the wrong mindset.”

However, he soon realised that “it depends upon the biological value of the protein instead of the actual protein. Nature has provided us with a lot of nutritional value through plants and animals and all we have to do is the right mathematics, to find out what has a high biological value.”

You think fitness only has to do with the physical body? Alas! That is definitely not the case as, in order to have a strong body, one needs a strong mind and Vignesh knows it. He says, “It is not about moving from point A to point B, but it is about how much your mind tells your biceps to lift this weight and recruit as many muscle groups as possible.”

While kettlebell lifting is done on a small scale in India, the weightlifter is upbeat that it will get its due respect. He adds, “It’s going to take time because it’s from Russia. There are only a few athletes around the world who are learning from the Russians and spreading the word about the sport. But the awareness is indeed spreading, and it is going to flourish very soon.” And while the gold is shining on his neck, Vignesh feels that he has a responsibility towards promoting the sport in every nook and cranny of India.

He also points out that Russia is pushing for kettlebell lifting to become an Olympic sport in 2028. However, he says, “I am much more keen on participating in the Russian world championships because it is like the lion’s den. Competing in their land and bringing pride to the country has never happened in the history of Indian kettlebell lifting.” Although he looks up to the challenge, it is going to take a few more years because the Russian standard in the sport is “way too high”.

So what does the sport mean to him? Vignesh answers, “It has given me an identity as there were times when I felt I was a complete failure. I was longing for this particular thing. It changed my life.”

On a concluding note, he urges men and women to lift weights, where they must start from 8kg. “8 kilos is nothing as anybody can lift 8 kilos. No other sport apart from kettlebell lifting has this sort of a feature where a novice can compete at such a high level,” he says, summing up.