Mirabai Chanu: Everything you need to know about Indian Olympic silver medallist Mirabai Chanu

(This story originally appeared in on Jul 24, 2021)

India have won their first medal at the Tokyo Olympics. And it’s courtesy India’s star weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, who has won the silver in the women’s 49kg category.

This is India’s second weightlifting medal at the Olympics overall, after Karnam Malleswari, who won the bronze at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Mirabai, with this has also become overall the 17th individual Olympic medallist from India (from 1900 to 2021).

Incredibly, Mirabai had failed to register a single clean lift in the clean and jerk in the Rio Olympics in 2016. The way she has bounced back is absolutely incredible. India have opened their medal account at the Tokyo Games, thanks to Mirabai’s brilliance.

In the final in Tokyo – Mirabai’s two valid lifts in the snatch event were – 84kg and 87kg

Meanwhile, in the Clean and Jerk event, she had two valid lifts again – 110kg and 115kg

Her total was 202kg (the best snatch lift and the best clean and jerk lift are combined for the total). Mirabai’s total (202kg) was 8kg behind Chinese lifter Hou Zhihui (210kg), who registered a new Olympic record enroute to winning the gold medal.

Here’s everything you need to know about India’s new Olympic star Mirabai Chanu:

Name: Mirabai Chanu (Weightlifting)

Date of Birth: August 8, 1994

Age: 26

Birth Place: Imphal, Manipur

Sport/Event(s): Weightlifting (49kg)

Major achievements:

* Silver in Tokyo Olympics (49kg)

* Bronze in 2020 Tashkent Asian Championships (49 kg)

* Gold in 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games (48 kg)

* Gold in 2017 Anaheim World Championships (48 kg)

* Silver in 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games (48 kg)

Mirabai Chanu. (AFP Photo)

Profile: Mirabai Chanu, the 2017 world champion, lifted 86kg in snatch and a world record 119kg in clean and jerk for a total of 205kg to win the bronze medal at the Asian Championship in April this year. Her perfect clean and jerk of 119kg is a world record.

Mirabai had a disappointing performance at the Rio Games but since then she has won the gold medal in the 2017 World Championships and 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Mirabai surely has evolved as a weightlifter since the last Olympics, changing and tweaking techniques.

Mirabai left for St Louis in the US on May 1 this year, to train under strength and conditioning coach Dr. Aaron Horschig. She was also undergoing treatment for her recurring shoulder injury there. She went to Tokyo directly from there to participate in the Olympics.

Mirabai was in the US in November-December last year to treat her lower back injury under the guidance of Dr. Horschig

She has won two Commonwealth Games medals (2014 Silver and 2018 gold). She also won the bronze medal in the 49kg category last year in the Asian Championships.

She was conferred the Khel Ratna for the year 2018. She is also technically the 6th Indian individual Olympic silver medallist (after Norman Pritchard, Rajyvardhan Rathore, Sushil Kumar, Vijay Kumar and PV Sindhu).

And now she will forever be remembered as an Olympic medallist.