Vijayawada: An international medallist in powerlifting, Seera Chandrakala, seeks financial support to enable her take part in more competitions to be held across the globe in the future.
Chandrakala is the first woman from Krishna district to win a medal at the Asian Power Lifting Championship in 2018 held at Udaipur, Rajasthan. Hailing from a poor family, she proved her mettle in powerlifting, a male-dominated sport.
Inspired by Karanam Malleswari, whom she considers her role model, Chandrakala too is aiming to be a world champion and bag a medal at the Olympics.
She is an expert in powerlifting, weightlifting and wrestling. Now, she is working as a constable in the Prohibition and Excise Department, which she joined in 2016.
Chandrakala began taking training in weightlifting when she was 13 years of age and Kandi Appa Rao is her guru. She took training at Gandhi Hill gym and faced several troubles while studying Intermediate.
Later, she joined the sports hostel and bagged her first international medal in weightlifting. After that, she stopped practising due to lack of funds and re-started taking training after securing a constable job.
Chandrakala won the silver medal in the Asian Weightlifting Champion-ship in 2010 held at Uzbekistan, Russia. She participated and stood in the 11th place in the World Weightlifting Championship in Bulgaria in June, 2011. She won gold medals for three years successively at the All India University Championship, from 2008 to 2010.
With neither the government nor any private institution sponsoring her, she is now being trained by her husband .
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Chandrakala said, “When a sportsperson wins an international medal, all the state governments honour the awardee with cash awards, jobs, land, etc. I did not receive any such things despite bringing home two international medals." She appealed to the state to sponsor her.
