Udaipur’s Bhupendra Kumar Vyas, one of the senior athletes and power lifters in the country, has been selected to represent India in the Common Wealth Unequipped Powerlifting & Benchpress Championship – 2011, which is being held in London from December 15^th.

Bhupendra will be participating in both equipped and unequipped competitions, under the 66-74 kg category.  He will be heading for Delhi on 4^th December and will be taking part in the eight day efficiency development camp, subsequent to which he will be flying for London with the Common Wealth Games team. 

Subsequent to winning the Gold medal in the National level powerlifting competitions at Jamshedpur earlier this year, Bhupendra was selected for the Common Wealth by the Indian Powerlifting Federation.  As an athlete he has won a number of competitions at various levels.

Recently, he has also won 4 medals in the Asian Powerlifting Championship held at Mongolia.  At individual performance level, he won 2 Gold and 1 Bronze and overall he managed to secure second place with Silver in the 75 kg weight category.

Bhupendra Vyas (41) is serving in the Rajasthan Police Department as a constable from past 23 years.  He developed interest in athletics and sports 15 years back while he was a passionate boxer and winning many competitions in boxing.  However, he left boxing after a few years.

Originally from Nai Village near Udaipur, Bhupendra belongs to a lower middle class family and can hardly afford to maintain his passion for sports.  “Sports is my passion; that is the reason of my life which I cannot overlook”, he said.

Bhupendra continued, “My daughter is also a good athlete and has won several district and state level medals.  I, however, want her to concentrate on her studies.  She scored A Grade in 10^th exams.”

Bhupendra, though feeling happy and proud for getting this opportunity to represent India, still complains about the biased conduct of the administration over every sport in India except cricket. He said, “I am thankful to all those who sponsored me but I object the role of administration in promoting powerlifting.”