Para powerlifter Jhandu Kumar, 29, from Harnaut village in Bihar's Nalanda district, clinched India's first medal at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow on 29 July, lifting 190kg to claim bronze in the para powerlifting event. The achievement caps a decade-long journey marked by polio, poverty, and a nickname born of despair that the lifter has since made his identity.

The Lift That Made History

Kumar opened his campaign with a successful 181kg lift, scoring 124.7 points, before improving to 190kg on his second attempt — a lift worth 130.9 points that moved him provisionally to the top of the leaderboard. In his final attempt, he went for 196kg, a weight that would have surpassed the Commonwealth Games record set at Birmingham in 2022, but was unable to complete it, settling for bronze. The medal is India's first at these Games.

A Name Born of Despair, Reclaimed With Pride

Born Avinash Kumar, he contracted polio at the age of five. His parents, who earned their living selling vegetables, exhausted their savings on his treatment. In a moment of financial anguish, his father reportedly said that 'everything had become jhand (ruined)' because of the mounting costs. Neighbours turned the remark into a taunt, and the name Jhandu Kumar stuck.

'When I got polio, my name was Avinash Kumar. My father once said everything had become jhand because all the money was gone. After that, people in society started calling me Jhandu Kumar. They would say, You have ruined everything. Wherever I went, they shouted Jhandu Kumar at me,' he recalled.

A visit to a block government office — where officials laughed when they realised 'Jhandu' and 'Avinash Kumar' were the same person — proved to be a turning point in how he saw the name. 'It hurt. But then I thought something else. All these people, despite being busy with work, smiled because of my name. From that day, I decided I would no longer be Avinash Kumar. I would officially become Jhandu Kumar. Today, every document carries that name. Nobody calls me Avinash anymore,' he said.

From Vegetable Stalls to the Gym Floor

Kumar left school after Class 8, helping his parents at their vegetable stall from the age of eight or nine. Sport entered his life in 2016, when a Salman Khan film sparked an interest in bodybuilding. With no gym nearby and no wheelchair, he received a government tricycle from Patna and began travelling to a gym roughly a kilometre away.

Protein supplements costing ₹5,000 to ₹8,000 were far beyond the family's means. 'I used to save the little money my parents gave me and somehow bought one box of protein. I trained for 10 days, then stopped for 15 because I couldn't afford the diet,' he said. His first sport was para athletics — coach Kundan Pandey guided him to a state gold in shot put and discus before recognising his physique was better suited to powerlifting.

E-Rickshaws, Sold Assets, and a Defining Gamble

Financial setbacks were relentless. An overbridge built over the family's vending spot wiped out their vegetable business income. Kumar started his own stall with just ₹5,000, rising at 4 am daily — travelling nearly 20 km to the wholesale market in Bihar Sharif, selling through the day, then heading to the gym. The stall earned barely ₹400–500 a day.

When vending disputes shut the stall, he drove an e-rickshaw for six months, repaying instalments of around ₹10,000 a month. Before the 2023 National Championships in Delhi, he sold the e-rickshaw itself to fund six months of training. He failed all three lifts at the event. 'I was completely broken. I thought everything was over. The shop was gone, the e-rickshaw was gone, and now I had failed,' he said.

The Coach Who Changed Everything

Fifteen days after that failure, celebrated para powerlifting coach Rajinder Singh Rahelu — a Commonwealth medallist himself — called Kumar and invited him to join the Sports Authority of India (SAI)'s National Centre of Excellence (NCoE) in Gandhinagar. 'I asked, Sir, will it cost money? He said, No. You just come here and win,' Kumar recalled.

Under Rahelu's structured coaching, Kumar won silver at the Khelo India Para Games in 2024 and became national champion two months later. He went on to lift 205kg to win the national title and broke the national record with a 206kg lift in the 72kg category. International results followed: bronze at his first World Cup in China, a strong finish at the World Championships in Egypt, and bronze at the Asia and Oceania Championships in Thailand — before the Commonwealth bronze in Glasgow.

Teammate and Asian medallist Paramjeet Kumar and others at the NCoE reportedly contributed supplements and financial support when the family could no longer help. Even now, Kumar says the years of mockery are never far from his mind — but the name that once drew laughter now draws applause. Asked whether he had ever considered reverting to Avinash, he smiled: 'No one calls me Avinash anymore. Jhandu Kumar is my name now.'

With the Commonwealth medal secured, Kumar's next targets on the international circuit will be closely watched as Indian para powerlifting continues to grow in stature.