Tokyo Olympics: First medal for India, Mirabai Chanu wins silver in women's 49kg weightlifting

India bagged its first medal at the Tokyo Olympics as weightlifter Mirabai Chanu won the silver medal in women's 49kg category on Saturday.

After lifting 84 kg successfully in the snatch, she completed 87kg in the second attempt. However, she failed to lift 89kg in her third attempt, and was pushed to the second spot, with China's Zhihui taking the lead. Zhihui broke her own Olympic record by lifting 94kg in her third snatch attempt—she lifted 92kg in her earlier attempt, which was also an Olympic record. In clean and jerk, Chanu successfully lifted 110kg in her first attempt. In her second attempt, she went for 115kg, setting another Olympic record.

The diminutive iron lady from Manipur lifted a total of 202kg (87kg+115kg) to better Karnam Malleswari's bronze in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. "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.

Chanu has been a regular for India at international weightlifting competitions since 2014. She won silver at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and managed to qualify for the next Olympic games. But, Rio 2016 was a disastrous outing. Chanu failed to lift any of her three attempts in clean and jerk in the 48kg category (the weight classes were restructured in 2018) and was therefore unranked.

"She was very disheartened after Rio," her former coach Anita Chanu told Olympics.com, ahead of Tokyo 2020. "She had come to meet me as well, I told her whatever has happened is in the past. Now put all your energy in the performances ahead. She's a very disciplined child and got back in the game.” Chanu became world champion in 2017 and won the gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

A lower back issue in 2018 plus the lockdown in March 2020 seemed to have hampered her preparations for Tokyo 2020, but the postponement of the Olympics helped. The Sports Authority of India and the Target Olympic Podium Scheme facilitated a stint in the US for her to work on her strength and conditioning. She went from not being able to lift two days in a row to lifting twice a day.

She secured her ticket to Tokyo in April at the Asian Championships; she lifted 119kg in clean and jerk, breaking the world record. But, she only won the bronze because of a subpar 86kg-lift in snatch. She then trained in the US for three months before landing in Tokyo. Her coach Vijay Sharma told THE WEEK that they did a lot of work with Dr Aaron Horschig, a former weightlifter, to improve her shoulder strength and snatch lift.