As Rishikanta Singh Chanambam stepped onto the platform for the men’s 60kg weightlifting competition at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow on Sunday, his biggest supporters gathered around a mobile phone more than 7,000 km away in Uttarlai, Barmer, Rajasthan.Even Rishikanta comes from Ngairangbam Makha Maning Leikai in ManipurIn Imphal West district, his parents lived with his elder brother, Amarjit Singhin Rajasthan for the past few months. His father is undergoing treatment for blood cancer at AIIMS Jodhpur, where he has already completed three rounds of chemotherapy and is responding well.Even as Rishikanta lifted a combined 264kg to claim the silver medal, thoughts of his father were never far from his mind.“We had a very difficult life, and I always tried to make him smile because I never spent much time with him,” Rishikanta said during an exclusive interaction with YOU. “The last time I went home, I even took him to a scooter showroom so he could finally buy one for himself.”Taking care of his family, however, has been a priority for Rishikanta since childhood.“I worked as a daily wage earner with some of my friends,” the 28-year-old recalled. “I worked for about two to three months. I was not a skilled worker, so I mostly helped with whatever work was available and earned about ₹150 a day.”He initially took the job to earn enough money to study in a private school like many of his friends. But as the family’s financial struggle deepened, the money he earned also went to support the family.While his parents worked as daily wage laborers on other people’s farms, his father also worked as a taxi driver to supplement the family’s income. Even then, they struggled to provide for a family of six – the parents, two sons and two daughters.“We don’t even have agricultural land,” said Amarjit, who has served in the Indian Air Force since 2012. “Our parents worked in other people’s fields to earn a living.”The family’s fortunes began to change only after Amarjit secured a job. Until then, every rupee mattered, and Rishikanta’s dream often depended on his elder brother’s support. “My elder brother is like my second father,” said Rishikanta. “There was a time when I had no income. I paid for my training and competitions. Whatever I am today is because of him.”Amarjit never thought twice before helping, and today he couldn’t be more proud of what his younger brother has achieved.As for Rishikanta’s sports journey, it started after a veteran coach convinced the family to send him for trials at the National Sports Academy in Imphal. He earned selection and spent his formative years under Brojendro Singh before progressing through the Sports Authority of India (SAI) system.The road, however, was anything but smooth. After aging out of the academy, he was forced to stay at home for several months without training before coaches and officials helped him resume his career at the SAI National Center of Excellence. I added it later Indian Navy in 2019, which provided him with financial security before entering the national field. In the last two years, he trained under national coach Vijay Sharma in Modinagar.Ironically, weightlifting was not Rishikanta’s first love.“My dream was to become a boxer,” he said. “I also trained in boxing for a while because I admired the sport after watching Dingko Singh. But once I started competing in weightlifting and won a tournament, I realized that this was where I belonged.”This decision transformed his life.Having narrowly missed out on a medal at the previous Commonwealth Games, Rishikanta looked set to crown his journey with gold in Glasgow after setting a CWG record of 121kg in the snatch. But a persistent knee injury, which had bothered him for weeks before the competition, limited him in the clean and the jerk, leaving him with silver. The medal, however, made him the first male weightlifter from Manipur to stand on the Commonwealth Games podium.“I believe I could have won the gold if I had been fully fit,” admitted Rishikanta. “The injury did not allow me to train as I wanted before the competition.”For Rishikanta, however, the silver represented much more than a medal. It was a tribute to parents who spent years working as laborers to keep the family afloat, an older brother he still calls his “second father”, and the promise of a boy who once earned ₹150 a day as a laborer that one day he would make all his sacrifices.