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1997: second in weight lifting, third in the 75 kg power lifting group

This result gets repeated loosely, including, until recently, on this gym's own website, which said second place in power lifting. The clipping says something slightly different, and since the gym is the one holding the clipping, the clipping wins.

The cutting

Gujarati newspaper cutting reporting South Gujarat University inter-college lifting results and naming Brijesh S. Joshi
Held at S R Gym. The publication name and exact date are not preserved on the cutting itself.

What the clipping says

The headline reads:

આંતર કોલેજ પાવર લીફ્ટીંગમાં અખંડ આનંદ કોલેજનાં ત્રણ વિદ્યાર્થીઓ મોખરે

, Three students of Akhand Anand College lead in inter-college power lifting.

The report covers students of Akhand Anand Arts & Commerce College competing at the South Gujarat University inter-college championships. It names three of them. One is બ્રિજેશ એસ. જોષી, Brijesh S. Joshi.

The result, precisely

  • Weight lifting, second place (દ્વિતિય ક્રમ).
  • Power lifting, 75 kg group, third place (તૃતિય સ્થાન).

Two other students are named in the same report with their own placings. We have not transcribed their results here, because they are not ours to publish.

Why the document is internally consistent with 1997

A single undated cutting is weak evidence on its own. What makes this one credible is that its details agree with things that can be checked independently.

  • The university's name. The report calls it South Gujarat University. That institution was founded in 1965 under that name and was only later renamed Veer Narmad South Gujarat University. A document forged recently would be likely to use the modern name.
  • The college exists, and is local.Akhand Anand Arts & Commerce College was established in 1992 on Ved Road, Surat, the same road S R Gym opened on two years after this result. A student competing from there in 1997 fits.
  • The competition structure fits the period. Weight lifting and power lifting run as separate events with their own placings, and power lifting is contested in bodyweight groups, the 75 kg group here.

Why there is no link to a news website

There is no online source for it, and there is unlikely ever to be one. This is a regional Gujarati-language sports brief from 1997. Gujarati newspapers of that period are not digitised, and the ones that have online archives do not reach back to the nineties. Gujarat Mitra, Surat's own daily, has published since 1863; almost none of that is on the web.

So the scan is the citation. That is a weaker form of evidence than a URL, and we would rather say so plainly than dress it up.

How far this result goes

  • Not a national or state title. This is an inter-college championship within one university.
  • Not a first place. Second in one event, third in another, both stated as printed.
  • Not a lifting career. It is one documented result from his student years, and it is on this site because it is where the coaching came from, not as a competitive record.

If you competed in the same championship and hold a fuller record, a result sheet, a certificate, or the masthead of this cutting, we would genuinely like to see it. Get in touch.