India might not have a significant fan-following when it comes to weightlifting because a majority of the fans follow cricket. However, there are athletes from other sports who are giving absolutely everything to make the country proud. Our athletes have been performing really well compared to previous years and are winning medals for the nation on the global stage.
Case in point, if there is one athlete who has braved all the challenges and touched the pinnacle of success when it comes to weightlifting over the last couple of years, it is none other than Mirabai Chanu. She is a world-class lifter from India and has represented the nation at the highest level and won accolades for India.
Mirabai’s talent was spotted at a young age. It was her parents who had first noticed her talent at the age of 12. Her parents learnt that Mirabai possesses great strength and that she could easily carry loads of firewood to her house which her elder brother found it hard to pick up.
There was no looking back since then. She announced her arrival in the international scene in style when she settled for silver at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. She went on to become an overnight sensation. However, it was just a beginning.
In 2017, she bagged a gold at the World Championships, proving that her Commonwealth Games silver was no fluke at all. She grew from strength to strength in the following year and won a Commonwealth Games Gold. It was then Mirabai hit the peak of her career.
In the 2019 World Championships, she set a national record of 201 kilograms but ended up at the fourth place. In the same year, she won bronze at the Asian Championships.
She brought the best out of herself in 2020 as she broke her own national record and lift 203 kilos to win gold at the National Championships.
Mirabai was awarded both the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and the Padma Shri in the year 2018.