Women Empower Wednesday: The Powerlifter Twinkle Sohail
Women have been lifting weights in many forms in our society. For instance, the weight of body shaming, the weight of casual sexism, the weight of harassment, and, the weight of violence and abuse. And all those weights there is a woman who wants to break these weights off from women’s shoulders and motivating them to carry the weights of iron. Today is all about the Powerlifter Twinkle Sohail.
Who is Twinkle Sohail?
Twinkle Sohail is a young 22-year-old girl powering her way through the barriers of the persecuted minority. She became the first Pakistani woman to represent her country in powerlifting category at Asian Championships. Sohail is also the first woman to bring back Gold for the country.
Twinkle Sohail sporting career and family
Twinkle started her professional sporting career with cycling and then shifted her focus to powerlifting. She is the daughter of Sohail Javed Khokhar. And as a matter of pride that all of her three sisters Maryam, Sybil, and Veronica are weightlifters. Throughout her career, she has been coached by Rashid Malik and Muhammad Zahid. Twinkle is currently pursuing a bachelor’s program focused in Sports Sciences from the University of the Punjab, Lahore.
National and International championship for Twinkle Sohail
Twinkle represents Pakistan Railways in national competitions. In November 2019, she won gold in the 76kg category at the National Games held in Peshawar. For the International championship Twinkle participated in Oceania Pacific Powerlifting Championship held in Singapore brought a total of 12 gold medals along with her teammates Sybil Sohail and Saniha Ghafoor in 2017.
Moreover, she has also earned a gold medal in the 57th category at Bench Press Competition held in Muscat, Oman. This contest had 148 participants representing 14 different countries. She became the first woman to represent her country in the championship and the first to bring back gold. In December 2019, she along with her younger sister, Veronica, participated in the 13th South Asian Games held in Kathmandu, Nepal.
A supportive father
Furthermore, it wasn’t easy for Twinkle and her sisters to pick out this difficult sport, her family especially her grandfather did not approve of it at first. But her father Sohail never gave up and stood his ground. Now everyone is proud of her. On one occasion Twinkle tickles a statement that “Mein to logon ko yeh kehti hoon‘Dangal’ bani hi hum pe hai!” (I always say to people that the movie Dangal is the real-life picturization of us sisters!)
In the end, other women who are stuck in different toxic situations can take massive inspiration from Twinkle Sohail. How magnificently she crossed every boundary and barrier without fearing the remarks of people.