The girl from Pekata who lifts more than twice her body weight

From a small farming village in Odisha’s Gajapati district, Jyoshna Sabar has won medals at three straight World Youth Championships and set an Asian Youth Record — in a weight class of just 40 kg.

By The Young Achievers2 min readSources checked 22 October 2026

✓ Verified · Age 16

Jyoshna Sabar · Born 25 October 2008 (federation record)

Filed under: Sports · Odisha · Weightlifting

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The achievement

Competing in the 40 kg class, Jyoshna Sabar has won a medal at three straight IWF World Youth Championships: bronze in Durrës, Albania, in 2023; silver in Lima, Peru, in 2024; and bronze again in Lima in April 2025. In December 2024, in Doha, she won the Asian youth title with a total lift of 135 kg — an Asian Youth Record.

She also holds two Commonwealth youth titles, from 2023 and 2024. On 26 December 2025 she received the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar in the Sports category.

From a village school to a high-performance centre

Jyoshna comes from Pekata, a small village in Gajapati district, where her parents are farmers. Teachers at her school spotted her sporting talent, and in 2018 she was selected for the TENVIC Weightlifting High Performance Centre in Bhubaneswar, studying alongside at the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences.

At home she won Khelo India Youth Games gold in Chennai in January 2024, setting a national youth record with a 60 kg snatch, and struck gold again at the 2025 Games in Rajgir, Bihar, just ten days after her World Youth medal in Lima.

✳ A spark to explore

Jyoshna’s schoolteachers were the first to spot her talent. Which teacher or coach has spotted something in you before you saw it yourself? That is a question from us, not part of her record.