A 140kg deadlift has turned the 21-year-old Indian powerlifter Keyaa Kunal Banerji right into a family identify, and all the web goes gaga over her expertise. She produced the jaw-dropping effort on the 2026 IPF World Sub-Junior and Junior Traditional Powerlifting Championships in Solar Metropolis, South Africa, the place she gained a silver medal within the particular person deadlift occasion within the Junior Ladies’s 47kg class.
The largest spotlight of her achievement was the distinction between her physique weight and the steel on the bar. Weighing simply 45.70kg, she lifted greater than 3 times her physique weight, an effort that shortly grew to become the spotlight of her marketing campaign and subsequently unfold throughout social media.
However who’s Keyaa Banerji?
Banerji is an Indian powerlifter competing within the Junior Ladies’s 47kg division. Her efficiency in South Africa was constructed round a 280kg whole, together with her finest lifts comprising a 90kg squat, a 50kg bench press, and a 140kg deadlift.
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Though she completed fifth total within the 47kg junior competitors, the deadlift proved to be her standout occasion. Her 140kg effort was sufficient to safe second place within the self-discipline.
France’s Ines Herbaux topped the deadlift standings with 165kg, whereas Eire’s Blathnaid O’Dwyer additionally managed 140kg. Banerji completed forward of O’Dwyer to take the silver medal.
On the 2025 Nationwide Championship, Banerji recorded an 82.5kg squat, a 47.5kg bench press and a 127.5kg deadlift, taking her whole to 257.5kg. She then raised these numbers on the 2026 Nationwide Championship, lifting 95kg within the squat, 52.5kg within the bench press and 140kg within the deadlift, ending with a 287.5kg whole.
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Banerji was not the one Indian athlete to make an influence in South Africa. Madhura Kar emerged as one of many nation’s standout performers on the championships, producing a four-gold-medal efficiency within the Sub-Junior Ladies’s 52kg class.
The powerlifter, who weighed 49.35kg, lifted 107.5kg within the squat, 60kg within the bench press and 125kg within the deadlift. Her mixed whole of 292.5kg helped her safe gold throughout all 4 disciplines.
Kar’s newest success added to a powerful report regardless of her younger age. A Class XII pupil from Jalpaiguri, she had already made her mark on the home stage by profitable the Nationwide Powerlifting Championship in 2024 and efficiently defending the title in 2025. She additionally gained the Nationwide Bench Press Championship in Faridabad earlier in 2026.
