Having tasted success in her first competition on return to the 48kg category with a gold medal at the Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships in Ahmedabad, Mirabai Chanu is looking forward to maintaining consistency with several international events coming up in the next few months.
Mirabai’s move was necessitated after the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) in June, revised its weight categories, scrapping the women’s 49kg division, a class in which Mirabai has competed for the past seven years, and in which she famously won silver at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. She also holds the world record in clean and jerk in that weight class, lifting 119kg at the 2021 Asian Championship.
But the return to the weight class, a division where she first announced her arrival on the global stage by winning silver at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, hasn’t been as easy for Mirabai, who recently turned 31.
With growing age, the shift in weight category demands significant physical and strategic adaptation. The focus for the diminutive Manipuri athlete was to control the weight and keep the muscles under control.
“The main focus was on controlling my diet to keep the weight in check and the muscles under control, because our muscles can be lost due to weight loss. Maintaining that is very challenging. I’ve controlled the diet as much as possible and focused more on the exercises so that the muscles do not get loose after controlling the weight,” she said.
While the Commonwealth Games remains vital to her plans, Mirabai is focused on the 2026 Asian Games in Japan, the only major multi-sport event where she is yet to win a medal. Injuries derailed her campaigns at both the 2018 and 2023 editions, making this event the elusive goal.
On Monday, after successfully lifting 84kg in Snatch, Mirabai came up with a smooth clean and jerk lift of 109kg in the second attempt for a total lift of 193kg. Her attempt at lifting 113kg was successful albeit outside the permissible time limit.
Coach Vijay Sharma later said that she needed to work more on her technique in jerk as she sets off final preparations for the all-important World Championships.
“I wanted to check how her body reacted to the load in 113 kg. There was no issue with the clean but we need to work on the jerk in the remaining four weeks,” he asserted.