Vikas Thakur (born 14 November 1993) is an Indian weightlifter from Hamirpur (Himachal Pradesh) who won silver in the men’s 85 kg weight class at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland. He won a bronze within4 the 94 kg weight class at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. He won the medal in the men’s 96 kg event at the 2022 Commonwealth Games held in Birmingham, England.

Family and Education

His father works in Indian railways because of which we used to live in government quarters. However, there was a slum area at the backside of his house and he used to hang out with children there. So, to keep himself busy and away from bad company, his family pushed him into athletics. But Vikas told that he is not much interested and it’s not his cup of tea. Then, they told him to take up boxing, in which he was interested. So, at the age of only 9, Vikas started training under his father’s colleague, Parvesh Chandra Sharma, who won the CWG medal in weightlifting in 1990. However, for the first four or five years, Vikas didn’t even realize what’s weightlifting and at that time and also, he just used to pass time during the training. But, as he started winning various competitions, Vikas realized that he can make a career out of weightlifting.

A weightlifting career

Vikas Thakur who is just 29, belongs to Ludhiana and is a heavyweight lifter who won his third consecutive medal in the Commonwealth Games 2022, aimed to be a boxer as a child, but at that time he had to shift to weightlifting at the age of only 8 as the city lacked any facilities for his training in boxing. Vikas won a silver medal in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in a recent year by lifting a total weight of 346 kg, including 155 snatches and 191 clean and jerk.