Ending a 28-year-old wait for a medal in weightlifting, Indian star athlete Mirabai Chanu won the silver in the women's 49kg category at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Wednesday. She lifted 87kg in the snatch and 111kg in the clean and jerk for a total of 198kg. The reigning world and Asian Games champion, Ri Song Gum of North Korea, won gold with 215kg.
India had not won an Asian Games weightlifting medal since Karnam Malleswari's silver in Bangkok in 1998.
Chanu’s prospects became brighter this year due to the absence of Chinese lifters from the competition. She had already won an Olympic silver, a world championship title and three successive Commonwealth Games gold medals. But, the Asian Games medal had repeatedly proved elusive.
The 32-year-old from from Manipur debuted at the Asain Games in 2014 with a ninth-place finish, and was forced to miss the 2018 event because of a back injury. She finished agonisingly fourth at Hangzhou in 2023, after suffering an injury during the competition.
Chanu was working closely with chief coach Vijay Sharma. Even after securing gold at the recent Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, she was back in training the next day to continue her preparations for the Aichi-Nagoya Games.
"The focus is on winning a medal at the Asian Games. That's been the aim for a very long time. It is the only medal I don't have," Chanu had told PTI.
Chanu has been aiming to achieve a 90kg snatch, a formidable lift she has been working towards for the last six years.
Chanu opened with 83kg in the snatch before clearing 85kg and 87kg with her next two attempts, finishing the first half of the competition in third place. She then produced a best lift of 111kg in the clean and jerk to seal the Asian Games medal.
