One of Ajaya Babu Valluri’s earliest memories of sport isn’t of competing but of watching it. Back when he was a six-year-old, he recalls a small crowd gathered one July evening at his home in the village of Kondavelagada, in Andhra Pradesh’s Vizianagaram district. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on a small television in the centre of the room. On the flickering screen was his father, Srinivasa Rao, competing in the men’s 56kg weightlifting event at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.
Ajaya doesn’t remember every detail from a decade and a half ago. What he does remember is the buzz around him.
“Everyone was so excited. They were all clapping and telling me that was my father on the TV,” he told Sportstar.
Srinivasa Rao on the podium after winning bronze in the men’s 56kg weightlifting category at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. | Photo Credit: The Hindu
Srinivasa would go on to win bronze in New Delhi, and the next day Ajaya remembers even more commotion.
“For the next few hours after my father won his Commonwealth Games, there were reporters and politicians at our home. The Chief Minister also came then,” he recalls.
Sixteen years later, life has come full circle.
In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, another small crowd gathers in the same house. Once again, their eyes are fixed on the television. This time, Srinivasa is among those watching, while it is his son Ajaya on the screen, competing at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
The crowd cheered as the 21-year-old cleared lift after lift to lead at the end of the snatch section. Nervous anticipation grew as the possibility of gold edged closer, only to give way to collective disappointment when Ajaya fell one kg short and settled for silver in the men’s 79kg category.
It’s not the result Ajaya had hoped for.
“My father’s one regret was that he didn’t win a gold medal. I will try to win one for him,” he had told Sportstar before leaving for Glasgow.
When the disappointment wears off, Ajaya will know that a medal, whatever its colour, is special.
“Growing up I saw how my father’s bronze medal changed our family’s life. Dad got a lot of prize money, we had a lot of loans that were paid off. It gave us an identity as the Commonwealth Games medallists family,” he recalls.
Ajaya remembers looking at that bronze medal hanging in a picture frame on the wall of his home.
“I would ask all sorts of questions about it. I’d ask what was the difference between the Commonwealth Championships and the Commonwealth Games? Why did one happen every year while the other came only once every four years? I used to wonder how difficult would it be to win one for myself,” he recalls.
“Very hard,” his father would tell him.
Strength sport, if not specifically weightlifting, is deeply embedded in the culture of this part of rural Andhra Pradesh. Kondavelagada is well known for its mango plantations and floriculture, but during temple festivals another tradition flourished: lifting massive stones to establish who was the strongest man in the village.
That was how his father’s own sporting journey began. He excelled in these traditional strength contests before attracting the attention of a coach, eventually moving first to Vijayawada for formal training and later joining the Army Sports Institute.
Reality check
Back then, Srinivasa was charting a relatively unknown path in the sport. Coming from modest means, he had little financial support.
“At the start of my career there was very little government support. My family had to sell most of our land simply so that I could train in his career when there was very little government support. I’d tell these stories all the time. I wasn’t trying to make him feel sorry for me. I was just telling him how things were,” Srinivasa tells Sportstar.
Srinivasa struggled largely because he was among the pioneers of weightlifting in the region. Inspired by his Commonwealth medal, government support gradually followed. A dedicated weightlifting facility was established, and Kondavelagada is now recognised as one of Andhra Pradesh’s most productive weightlifting centres. More than a dozen lifters from the area have represented India internationally or won national titles, while one, Santoshi Matsa, won silver in the women’s 53kg category at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Growing up, Ajaya was surrounded by the sport. Srinivasa, who was serving in the Indian Army, regularly took his son to training camps, where the young boy ran around between stacks of iron plates.
“I might not have known anything about the snatch or clean and jerk but I was already playing next to top weightlifters. I enjoyed being among them,” he recalls.
A young Ajaya Babu at an army weightlifting camp in Pune, where his dad was training. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Although he grew up in a weightlifting environment, Ajaya didn’t take to the sport immediately.
“I think my father hoped that I would study. He used to keep telling me how difficult it was to be a weightlifter,” he says.
But the attraction proved irresistible.
Eventually, Srinivasa agreed to coach his son himself. With an elite lifter guiding him, Ajaya mastered the fundamentals before becoming a junior national champion and moving to the national camp in Patiala in 2021.
Ajaya admits having his father as a coach was a major advantage.
“He would always tell me that in his time there was no money in the sport and that his family struggled. He reminds me that I had everything he never had. He would say, ‘Ajaya, I’m standing behind you. You don’t have to worry about anything except lifting,’” Ajaya recalls.
Yet inheriting a famous surname was not always an advantage.
“As soon as I started competing, I always felt that if I was going to compete, I had to do justice to my father’s name,” Ajaya says.
That burden became overwhelming during his first Youth National Championships.
Unable to handle the pressure, he failed to register a total, a washout.
“At at that time I wondered whether I even belonged at this level. I felt I was not doing justice to my fathers name and if I couldn’t do that, I might as well leave the sport,” he recalls.
Life lessons
Instead of allowing his son to spiral, Srinivasa drew on his own experiences.
“He has seen every situation in weightlifting. Whenever I go through a bad phase, he knows how to handle it because he has experienced it himself,” Ajaya recalls.
Ajaya gradually rebuilt his confidence, winning youth and junior national titles before making the jump to the senior ranks. Progress, however, rarely follows a straight line, and during dips in form his father’s support proved invaluable.
That guidance became particularly important when Ajaya fractured his elbow in 2024. Advised to undergo surgery, he instead chose rehabilitation, spending three months away from lifting before rebuilding his strength.
It was during the Junior Commonwealth Championships in Suva, Fiji, in 2024, where he posted a 326kg total, that he first began believing the Commonwealth Games itself was within reach.
“That was the competition where I realised I could qualify for the Commonwealth Games.”
At the following year’s Commonwealth Championships, he won gold in the senior category with a total lift of 335kg, making a statement that he would be firmly in the medal mix.
The gold medal at the Commonwealth Weightlifting Championship 2025 was the confidence boost Ajaya Babu needed. | Photo Credit: VIJAY SONEJI
As Glasgow approached, comparisons with his father became unavoidable.
Like Srinivasa before him, Ajaya serves in the Indian Army’s Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers. They have trained at many of the same facilities, worn the same uniform and represented India on the same stage.
Yet Ajaya insists they are very different competitors.
“My father lifted with anger and emotion,” he says with a smile. “I lift calmly. I keep my mind cool.”
That approach was evident in Glasgow. Despite missing his second attempt in the snatch, Ajaya kept his composure and did not miss another lift. It ultimately took a Games record by Malaysia’s Erry Hidayat on his final attempt to deny Ajaya gold by the barest of margins.
Despite the narrow miss, Ajaya will know that at 21, time is firmly on his side. The gold his father once dreamed of remains within reach. For now, though, the bronze medal hanging on the wall of Srinivasa’s home in Kondavelagada has some company in the form of his son’s silver.
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Published on Jul 28, 2026