25 Interesting Facts About Mirabai Chanu
India’s account has been opened on the very second day of the Tokyo Olympics. The country’s biggest hope Mirabai Chanu has won a silver medal in weightlifting. Chanu won silver in the 49kg women’s weightlifting event. Mirabai lifted 87 kg in snatch, 115 kg in clean and jerk, and lifted a total of 202 kg. With this, she has become the first Indian to win a medal in Tokyo 2020 and the second Indian in Olympic history to win a medal in weightlifting. Let me inform you that Mirabai Chanu is the only athlete to represent the country as a weightlifter in the Tokyo Olympics. Let’s know about the life of Mirabai Chanu and her interesting facts.
FACT#1. Mirabai Chanu became the first athlete to win a medal for India at the Tokyo Olympics. He got the country’s first medal in the form of a silver medal.
FACT#2. Mirabai Chanu did this amazing in the women’s weightlifting event of 49 kg weight category. Chanu lifted a total of 202 kg. He lifted 87 kg in snatch and 115 kg in clean and jerk.
FACT#3. Mirabai Chanu is the second Indian athlete to win a medal in women’s weightlifting. Before him, Karnam Malleswari won the bronze medal in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
FACT#4. Mirabai Chanu is the second Indian woman after badminton star PV Sindhu to win a silver medal for India in the Olympics.
FACT#5. Mirabai Chanu is the second oldest woman after Mary Kom to win a medal in the Olympics. Mary Kom won the medal in London in 29 years. Chanu did this amazing feat in Tokyo in 26 years.
FACT#6. Mirabai Chanu wears an earring designed for the Olympic Ring, which was given to her by her mother after the Rio Olympics.
FACT#7. Before landing in the Tokyo Olympics, Mirabai Chanu had made a world record in weightlifting’s clean and jerk by lifting a weight of 119 kg. However, she could not repeat her success in Tokyo.
FACT#8. Mirabai Chanu, who created a success story in Tokyo, had to deal with depression after the failure in the Rio Olympics.
FACT#9. The year 2017 was high in her career when she became the world champion.
FACT10. Manipur has given many athletes, who have brought honor to India on the stage of sports. And, now Mirabai Chanu has become the most successful face in the same list of Manipuri athletes.
FACT#11. Mirabai Chanu was born in remote Manipur. She wanted to make a career in archery since childhood, but in the 8th standard, she thought of making a career in weightlifting. Chanu also got interested in weightlifting after considering Imphal’s weightlifter Kunjrani as an inspiration.
FACT#12. Mirabai Chanu won the silver medal for India in the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Gold of this category also came in India’s account. Mirabai Chanu defeated her idol weightlifter Kunjrani in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games qualifying match to make her place in the Rio Olympic Games.
FACT#13. Mirabai had brought laurels to the country by winning the gold medal in the 48 kg category in the 2017 World Weightlifting Championships. He also won the gold medal in the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
FACT#14. She has won this medal in the weight of 49 kg. In this category, Hou Zhui of China won the gold and Windy Asah of Indonesia won the bronze medal. Chanu won the silver medal for India by lifting a total of 202 kg. From a poor performance at the 2016 Rio Olympics to a medal in the Tokyo Olympics, Chanu’s journey has been a stellar one.
FACT#15. Did not finish – It is one thing if you fall behind other players in a match like the Olympics, but if you are not able to complete your game then it can be a morale-breaking incident for any player. The same happened for India’s weightlifter Mirabai Chanu in 2016. Meera was only the second athlete in her class in the Olympics whose name was written in the Olympics next to ‘Did not finish.
FACT#16. The weight that Meera used to lift easily in daily practice, on that day in the Olympics, her hands were frozen like snow. At that time it was night in India, so very few Indians saw that sight.
FACT#17. When the sports lovers of India read the news in the morning, Mirabai became a villain in the eyes of Indian fans overnight. It came to such an extent that after 2016 she went into depression and had to take counseling sessions every week. After this failure, once Meera had made up her mind to say goodbye to the game. But he did not give up and made a strong comeback in international competitions. Mirabai Chanu won the gold medal in the 48 kg weightlifting at the Commonwealth Games in Australia in 2018 and is now an Olympic medal.
FACT#18. By the way, looking at the 4 feet 11 inch Mirabai Chanu, it is also difficult to guess that a small Meera can get rid of the sixes of the elders.
FACT#19. Meera won gold at the 2017 World Weightlifting Championships by lifting almost four times her weight i.e. 194 kgs.
FACT#20. Mirabai became the first Indian woman to do so in the last 22 years. Meera did not even eat food that day to maintain her weight of 48 kg. To prepare for this day, Mirabai did not even attend her real sister’s wedding last year. The tears flowing from the eyes of Meera, who won a medal for India, were a witness to the pain she was going through since 2016.
FACT#21. Born on 8 August 1994 and raised in a small village in Manipur, Mirabai was very talented since childhood. His village without special facilities was some 200 km away from Imphal. In those days, Kunjurani Devi, a female weightlifter from Manipur, was the star and went to play in the Athens Olympics.
FACT#22. Just the same scene settled in the mind of little Meera and Mirabai, the youngest of six siblings, decided to become a weightlifter. In front of Meera’s insistence, the parents also had to give up. When she started practicing in 2007, at first she did not have an iron bar, so she used to practice with bamboo.
FACT#23. If there was no training center in the village, she used to go 50-60 km away for training. Milk and chicken were needed daily in the diet, but that was not possible for Meera of a common family. He didn’t even let it come in the way.
FACT#24. In 11 years she became the under-15 champion and in 17 years she became the junior champion. Seeing the Kunjurani, Meera had a dream of becoming a champion, Meera broke the 12-year-old national record of her same idol in 2016 – lifting 192 kilograms.
FACT#25. However, the journey was not easy even then as Meera’s parents did not have so many resources. It had come to the point that if she could not qualify for the Rio Olympics, she would quit the sport. Well, it did not even happen. Apart from the World Championship, Mirabai has also won a silver medal in Glasgow Commonwealth Games. By the way, apart from weightlifting, Meera is also fond of dancing. In an interview given to the BBC, she had told, “Sometimes after training, I close the room and dance and I like Salman Khan.”
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