Nagoya: Ace Indian lifter Mirabai Chanu finally won her maiden Asian Games medal after bagging a silver in the women’s 49kg weightlifting event at the Asian Games here on Wednesday.
The 32-year-old Indian produces a total lift of 198kg (87kg snatch and 111kg clean and jerk) at the Nagota City Trade and Industry Centre to secure the silver and become India’s first Asian Games weightlifting medallist since Karnam Malleshwari won the silver in Bangkok in 1998.
Two-time Asian Games and world champion Ri Song-gum of North Korea clinched the gold with a total of 210 kg (Snatch 94 kg, Clean & Jerk 121 kg), while Indonesia’s Wijayana Luluk Diani Tri took bronze after lifting 191 kg (87 kg in snatch, Clean & Jerk 103).
A medal in Aichi-Nagoya completed Mirabai’s collection of medals in the three major multi-sport events – the Olympics, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. Moreover, after Karnam Malleshwari, Mirabai became the second Indian weightlifter to win a medal in all major international weightlifting events; Olympics, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, and World Championships Asian & Commonwealth Championships.
Mirabai has Olympic silver, a world title and three Commonwealth Games gold medals to her name, but the Asian Games podium had remained out of reach until Wednesday. At the 2014 Asian Games, she finished ninth on her debut. At the 2018 edition in Jakarta, she was forced to miss the competition due to injury. She appeared to have another opportunity in Hangzhou in 2023, only to finish a heartbreaking fourth after a thigh injury hampered her clean and jerk attempts in the final.
Three years later, Chanu returned to Japan, a country where she bagged her Olympic silver, and finally delivered the elusive Asian Games medal she had been chasing since 2014.
Her journey has been marked by setbacks as much as success. At the Rio 2016 Olympics, she failed to register a valid lift in the competition. Five years later, she responded emphatically at the Tokyo Olympics, winning the silver medal and establishing herself among the leading names in world weightlifting.
Chanu opened her campaign with an 87kg snatch and carried the same weight into her successful clean-and-jerk effort before finishing with 198kg overall.
The silver also extended India’s growing medal presence in Nagoya and brought an end to a 28-year wait for a weightlifting medal at the Asian Games.
(IANS)
