Mirabai Chanu – The 29-year-old Indian weightlifter followed her Tokyo Games silver medal with a fourth-place finish in Paris in the women’s 49kg event.
Paris: Mirabai Chanu’s lead-up to the Paris Olympics was fraught with uncertainties. In January, she struggled to regain her optimal strength training level, raising doubts about her ability to compete in Paris.
Fast forward a little over six months, and Mirabai did make it to Paris. However, she experienced another near-miss, finishing in fourth place—a heart-wrenching day for the Indian contingent. With a total lift of 199kg, the 29-year-old Indian added a fourth-place finish in Paris to her silver medal from the Tokyo Games in the women’s 49kg category. China’s Hou Zhihui, the Tokyo Olympics gold medallist, defended her title with a total lift of 206kg. Romania’s Mihaela Valentina Cambei took silver with 205kg, while Thailand’s Surodchana Khambao secured bronze with a lift of 200kg.
Mirabai matched her national record in the snatch with an 88kg lift on her final attempt, placing her in joint medal contention. However, the clean and jerk proved decisive and altered the outcome.
The Challenging Build-Up to the Olympics for Mirabai Chanu
Mirabai Chanu’s journey to the Olympics has been fraught with challenges. While outwardly, she was lifting weights and defying gravity with grace, inwardly, she was entangled in a web of self-doubt. The build-up to the Olympics saw her spending as much time in an orthopedic clinic and with a psychologist as she did in the gym.
In the past year alone, Mirabai endured more injuries than competitions. Her wrist, shoulder, back, hip, and thigh troubled her so much that even her usually strong and unwavering mind started playing tricks on her. She confided in her therapist, wondering why she was facing such struggles. “Did I do anything wrong? Or is it something else?” she questioned.
To find a cure, Mirabai and her coach Sharma ventured far beyond their familiar training environment in Patiala. They sought help from a physiotherapist in the USA and a surgeon in Mumbai. This journey turned her Tokyo-to-Paris cycle into a ‘project’ to ‘fix’ Mirabai Chanu. Back in the Tokyo Games, it was a mysterious back injury; this time, it was much more.
Sharma explained that her struggles resulted from lifting ‘one truckload’ of weight for nearly a decade, the maximum training load—an immense amount of sets, repetitions, and weight. This grueling regimen took its toll, as seen at the Asian Games last year when she collapsed mid-lift, with the bar dropping in front of her. She was carried away by the coaching staff, and upon returning to India, she was taken directly to meet Dr. Dinshaw Pardiwala, who has treated many of India’s athletes.
When she first met Dr. Pardiwala, Mirabai complained of pain in the right side of her hip. Once that healed, her shoulder gave out—a torn rotator cuff, a critical muscle group for shoulder stabilization. The injury was so severe that she was advised to avoid lifting weights to allow the ‘traumatic tears’ to heal before gradually increasing her training load.
The five months leading up to 2024 were among the most stressful for Mirabai. She maintained her sanity by befriending stray dogs at Patiala’s National Institute of Sport, feeding them, walking them, and arranging veterinary visits. Her mother also came from Manipur, providing the comfort of home-cooked meals.
These challenging months made Mirabai and Sharma wiser. They planned her rehabilitation meticulously, aiming for a 200-plus kg lift. They knew that no other lifter, except the Chinese competitors in Paris, had a higher total than her. All she needed was proper execution to reach the 200 kg mark.
However, on a gloomy day, despite their meticulous planning, there was no silver lining.