Sunday, 25 July 2021 | PTI | Tokyo
21-year-long wait for weightlifting medal at Olympics ends
A confident smile never leaving her face, Mirabai Chanu ended India’s over two-decade long wait for a weightlifting medal at the Olympics, clinching the 49kg category silver medal five years after leaving the same platform in tears following a disastrous debut.
With her historic triumph, she ensured that India was second on the medals tally for a brief while, a feat that has never been achieved before by the country. It was also the first time that India managed to win a medal on the opening day competitions.
The diminutive iron lady from Manipur lifted a total of 202kg (87kg+115kg) to better Karnam Malleswari’s bronze in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. With this, she exorcised the ghosts of the 2016 Games where she had failed to log a single legitimate lift, leaving her shattered.
“I am very happy, I have been dreaming of this for the past five years. I am very proud of myself right now. I did try for gold but even silver is a great achievement for me,” Chanu told reporters after her career-defining triumph for which she had been training in the US for past few months.
The 2016 experience was a watershed in her career and Chanu had spoken about how confused she had felt during her debut at the biggest stage. There was none of those nerves to be seen on Saturday, just a very composed and focussed athlete who knew she was destined for the podium.
“I am very happy to win the first medal for India at these Games. I don’t just belong to Manipur, I belong to the whole country,” she said in response to a query on what it meant for her as a Manipuri.
“I would like to thank my coach Vijay Sharma andthe support staff for their continuous hard work, motivation and training,” she added.
Her smile shone the brightest during the entire performance on Saturday but also hard to miss were the Olympic rings’ shaped earrings that she was sporting, which were a gift from her mother.
“I would like to thank my family, especially my mother for a lot of sacrifices and believing in me,” she said.
The gold went to China’s Hou Zhihui with an effort of 210kg (94kg+116kg), who created Olympic records in all three categories (snatch, clean and jerk and Total).
“I’ve tried many times to beat her. I failed one attempt (on clean & jerk) but I was trying very hard to beat her,” Chanu said.
Aisah Windy Cantika of Indonesia took home the bronze with an effort of 194kg (84kg+110kg).
Considered her weakness in the run up to the marquee event, Chanu attempted 84kg in her first snatch attempt. The Manipuri took her time and cleanly heaved the barbell.
She lifted 87kg in her next attempt and raised the weight to 89kg, which was 1kg more than her personal best of 88kg that she had lifted at the national championship last year.
However, she was unable to better her personal best and settled for 87kg in the snatch event only behind leader Zhihui, who created a new Olympic record with an effort of 94kg.
