How she lifted herself, India
KOLKATA: Seeing that she could lift stuff her sons couldn’t, Mirabai Chanu’s mother asked her to consider weightlifting -- “woh weight uthane ka game (sport where you lift weights)”. Chanu refused, and went to the Khuman Lampak Stadium in Imphal, hoping to be an archer.
The office of the state archery federation was next to that of weightlifting. The energy of the practice session attracted her, and she told her mother that weightlifting is what she wants to do.
That was in 2014, when she was just 14. And a journey began that hasn’t ended with the 49kg Olympic silver in Tokyo. A journey that almost didn’t get this far because she was sure she would quit after failing three clean and jerk attempts in Rio 2016. “The Olympics experience was good till I failed,” she said earlier.
But Chanu didn’t give up. After Rio, she switched her phone off and got down to work at Patiala’s National Institute of Sports, which has been home since 2012. “You focus on training and slowly those memories recede,” she said.
On Saturday, Chanu buried the ghost of Rio with a silver medal at Tokyo.
KOLKATA: She was named by an elder sibling, and even though her parents played football, archery was her preferred sport. Seeing that she could lift stuff her sons couldn’t, Mirabai Chanu’s mother asked her to consider “woh weight uthane ka game (sport where you lift weights)”. Chanu refused, and went to the Khuman Lampak Stadium in Imphal, hoping to be an archer.
The office of the state archery federation was next to that of weightlifting.
“When I went there, a training session was on—the lifters were shouting, exhorting themselves. That energy attracted me. And I told Ma that weightlifting is what I want to do. Around this time, Kunjarani Devi’s achievements were part of our school curriculum. That led to a further spurt in interest,” Chanu told HT in an hour-long conversation last year. Also from Manipur, Devi is a seven-time world weightlifting championship silver medallist and winner of two Asian Games bronze medals.
That was in 2008, when Chanu was 14 and the journey that began then hasn’t ended with the 49kg Olympic silver on Saturday but has surely hit one of its finest moments. A journey that almost didn’t get this far because she was sure she would quit after failing three clean & jerk attempts in Rio
2016. “If I had one successful attempt, I could have got silver in Rio,” said Chanu, the only time she wasn’t her usually sunny self during the interaction one day after she lifted 203kg (87kg snatch + 115 clean and jerk), bettering her national record to win the 49kg gold in the national championships. “The Olympics experience was good till I failed. After that I didn’t want to go anywhere. My mind had gone blank. Suddenly, it was like I had forgotten to do the jerk. Clean was easy,” she said. “Got nervous, it had never happened to me before.”
She had not expected it either. She had gone into the competition confident, she had spent two weeks in Brazil getting used to the atmosphere of the Olympics and feeling good in her practice sessions. “And then that happened. I told Sir (Vijay Sharma, her coach) I will quit. For five days, I didn’t feel like eating, I just stayed in my room and wept. Sir was crying too.”
She didn’t give up for two reasons. A competitor from China who, like Chanu, was a medal prospect in another category had a similar experience, and Sharma, along with officials of the federation, used her example to tell Chanu that she wasn’t the only one. And because Chanu’s mother simply told her, “Thik ho jayega. (all will be well)”. “She asked me what was the next big event and I said, ‘the world championship in 2017.’ And she said, “you will do well there.”
Prescient words. Chanu won gold in the 48kg with a total of 194kg. After Rio, she had switched her phone off and got down to work with Sharma at NIS Patiala that has been home since 2012.
Chanu is the youngest of four sisters and two brothers. The brothers, like their parents, play football. Her father worked in the state public works department and her mother is a homemaker. It was one of her sisters, “my second oldest didi” who named her. “She had a friend named Mirabai in school. They were very close and when they left school, my sister told her friend that she would name me after her,” said Chanu.
Three years after she signed up for weightlifting, Chanu got called to a camp in Bengaluru for the Asian and Commonwealth youth championships. Chanu said she took part in the Asian meet and was again called to a camp, this time in Patiala, in 2012. By then, Kunjarani Devi was one of her coaches.
Unable to speak proper Hindi and living so far from home was hard and “a lot of tears were shed over phone calls”. A measure of how much things have changed could be gauged by this conversation happening mostly in Hindi. But at least then, she would go home once every two months or so and kick back with her family for a couple of weeks. That changed when she became part of the core group of lifters. Then the training became obsessive and family visits were only once-a-year affairs.
Chanu has had her share of injuries and after the high of 2017, she missed the Asian Games because her back played up suddenly during training in Himachal. It needed four months of recovery under sports science and medicine expert Heath Matthews in Mumbai. When she came back, she couldn’t even snatch 35kg. Last year, with the pandemic pausing almost all sporting events, Chanu went to the US to work on her back with a physical therapist and strength coach. Alongside, there was coach Sharma, with Chanu since 2014, improving her technique and working on her nutrition too, introducing more red meat into her diet.
All of that led to the silver in Tokyo. “I wanted to go there and put all that I have been doing in training,” Chanu said about her pre-game mindset after winning the medal. “If I could do that, I know I would win a medal, I told myself.”
Your outstanding performance in the Tokyo Olympics 2020 is sure to be remembered as one of the best by an Indian athlete at the Olympics Games and shall also serve as an inspiration for generations to come.
ABHINAV BINDRA, 2008 gold medallist
What a wonderful start to #Tokyo2020! congratulations to @mirabai_chanu for winning the Silver medal in weightlifting. RVS RATHORE, 2004 silver medallist
Absolutely amazing display of weightlifting. The way you have transformed yourself after your injury and clinched a historic silver for #Teamindia is absolutely stupendous. You have made Flag of India very proud. SACHIN TENDULKAR, India cricket legend