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What’s the story?
Powerlifting world champion Saksham Yadav succumbed to injuries he sustained in a road accident on Sunday. The 28-year-old died in the evening in the Trauma Centre at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi a few hours after suffering a horrific road accident on the Delhi-Panipat highway.
Four other athletes, all national-level powerlifters, who were accompanying Yadav, died on the spot while another lifter is still receiving treatment in the hospital.
"He died at 6.38 pm of cardiac arrest," a senior doctor at the trauma centre said.
In case you didn’t know…
In December 2017, Yadav bagged the gold medal for India at the powerlifting world championship held in Moscow. Back in 2016, he had won the gold medal in the junior category. He was a resident of Nagloi, in north Delhi.
The heart of the matter
As reported earlier on Sunday, the accident took place around 4 am in the morning close to the Singhu border between Delhi and Haryana, near Alipur village.
According to the police, the car in which the athletes were travelling, hit a road divider at first before hitting an electric pole. The officers further revealed that the athletes may have lost control of the vehicle in the dense fog after speeding and there was also a possibility of drunken driving as some liquor bottles were found in the vehicle
The injured were immediately rushed to the Max Hospital in New Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh locality. Later on, Yadav was moved to the AIIMS trauma centre in an 'extremely critical' condition. He had sustained severe head injuries and was bleeding internally as well. The injuries and internal bleeding eventually caused a cardiac arrest which, in turn, caused the death.
The other deceased has been identified as Tikamchand, Saurabh, Yogesh and Harish Roy, revealed Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rohini) Rajneesh Gupta.
What’s next?
While the others succumbed to their injuries, one person is still fighting for his life.
Author's take
Yadav’s death is a great loss for the country as well as the sporting fraternity. It was only a month ago that he won a gold medal at the world championships and made his country proud. He could have won many more laurels. Alas, it was not to be.
