Indian weightlifter Mirabai Chanu finally ended her wait for an Asiad medal after she clinched silver in the women’s 49kg category at the 2026 Asian Games in Nagoya on Wednesday.
had made her debut in Incheon, South Korea, in 2014. However, she finished ninth in that edition and went on to miss the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta due to an injury.
At the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, she missed out on a podium after finishing in fourth place.
Prior to this, Chanu had won a medal in each of the other major international competitions, including the Olympics, and the World Championships.
While Chanu has gone on to become one of the most prominent names in Indian weightlifting, her first choice was another sport. The 32-year-old wanted to become an archer before an unexpected visit to a sports centre in Imphal changed the direction of her career.
In early 2008, Chanu travelled with a cousin to the Sports Authority of India centre at Khuman Lampak in Imphal, about 20 kilometres from her village. She had gone there looking for archery training. However, there was no archery session that day, and she did not meet an archery coach.
“All my brothers and cousins play football, but they would come back home dirty after a day’s play. I wanted to play a sport which is neat and clean. At first, I wanted to be an archer, as they are neat and clean, and stylish,” Mirabai had told news agency PTI in an interview in 2018.
“They just stand and shoot. So, one day, I and my cousin went to the SAI Centre, at Khuman Lampak in Imphal. However, I could not meet any archer, as there was no archery training that day,” she added.
Instead, Chanu came across weightlifting when she had been influenced by the achievements of fellow Manipuri weightlifter Kunjarani Devi.
Chanu had seen accounts of Devi’s performances and became interested in the sport. She subsequently visited a weightlifting training centre, where she met former international weightlifter Anita Chanu, who began training her.
“Then, at that time, I saw some clippings of Kunajarani Devi’s exploits in the international arena and that influenced me to take up to weightlifting. So, after a few days, I and my cousin, again, went to the weightlifting training centre and luckily, I met (former international weightlifter and current coach) Anita Chanu, and she initiated me into the sport,” she explained.
Chanu progressed rapidly. She won a junior national title in 2009 and earned a place in the national camp in the following years. Her first major international breakthrough came at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where she won silver in the women’s 48kg category with a 170kg total.
She made her Olympic debut at the Rio Olympics in 2016 but failed to register a valid total after three unsuccessful clean-and-jerk attempts. Five years later, she returned to the Olympic stage at Tokyo 2020 Olympics and won silver in the women’s 49kg category. She also became world champion in 2017 and won Commonwealth Games gold in 2018, 2022 and 2026 editions.
