New Delhi: One among Mirabai Chanu’s most heartening traits is her potential to smile within the face of adversity. Be it the Tokyo excessive or the Paris heartbreak, Chanu’s ear-to-ear grin has remained a relentless, and it did make a beneficiant look when one requested her to replicate on her efficiency at this yr’s Olympics.
India’s Mirabai Chanu competes on the ladies’s 49kg in Paris Olympics. (PTI)
“Recalling disappointments is never easy, but I will give it a shot,” she started, her smile intact. “There’s no point in brooding over what’s done. It is important for athletes to dust themselves up after a failure and start over.”
A fourth-place end is commonly greater than a failure although. It’s sport’s most agonising end result, extra so when one misses it by a whisker. Chanu, a silver medallist at Tokyo Olympics, entered Paris as one in every of India’s brightest medal hopes, however avoiding the problem from China’s defending champion Hou Zhihui and Thaialnd’s 2021 world champion Surodchana Khambao was at all times going to be a tall order.
“Missing the medal by only 1kg did hurt a lot, but I can draw satisfaction from the fact that I did everything in my capacity to win a medal. I have been dealing with injuries throughout this cycle due to which my training suffered. I also had menstrual cramps which made things tougher for me in Paris.”
The 30-year-old Indian had aggregated a carry of 200kg or extra solely as soon as within the Paris cycle and was but to completely get well from the hip tendonitis damage she sustained on the Hangzhou Asian Video games in 2023. Given the context, a 199kg carry was not a foul effort — it will have gained her a bronze at Tokyo Olympics — however Zhihui (206kg), Romania’s Mihaela Cambei (205kg), and Khambo (200kg) took the highest three spots. The final time all three medallists hoisted 200kgs or extra within the lowest ladies’s division on the Olympics was 20 years again when Turkey’s Nurcan Taylan (210kg), China’s Li Zhuo (205kg), and Thailand’s Aree Wiratthaworn (200kg) all went previous the mark in Athens. By the way even then, an Indian, Kunjarani Devi, had taken the fourth spot.
“On any other day, in any other competition, 199kg could have won me a medal,” Chanu stated. However the reality stays that even on the continental degree, increasingly more athletes in Chanu’s division are more and more breaching the 200kg threshold. In Hangzhou, for example, each the gold and silver medallists — North Korea’s Ri Track-gum (216kg) and China’s Jiang Huihua (213kg) — eased previous 200kgs, a primary since 2002 Busan Asian Video games. Chanu additionally wants to grab 90kgs or extra to ease the stress within the clear and jerk rounds.
“I know I need to raise my game if I am to win a medal in Los Angeles,” she stated. Whereas that’s nonetheless 4 years away and it stays to be seen if Chanu’s battered physique may have sufficient to final that lengthy, 2026 Asian Video games in Japan’s Aichi-Nagoya are a sensible and unfulfilled goal.
With that in thoughts, Chanu has began taking child steps in the direction of attaining peak health. Publish-Paris, she spent some weeks at her house. Chanu flew to St Louis in USA in October for 10 days to renew her classes with Dr Aaron Horschig. She has began lifting gentle weights solely not too long ago as focus stays firmly on restoration.
“The right thigh is still a work in progress for her. She can win a medal anywhere in the world if she is injury free. Since there are no major competitions in sight, we are focussing on some strength work and progressive overload,” nationwide coach Vijay Sharma stated.
Chanu additionally skipped the 2024 World Championships in Bahrain however travelled to the competitors “to have a closer look at my opponents.”
“I don’t want to rush things. Over-training or wrong training can lead to muscle imbalances and more injuries, so we are taking it slow. As of now, focus is on strengthening the weaker muscles while allowing my thigh to rest,” she stated.
The ace weightlifter has additionally shifted her coaching base from NIS Patiala to Modinagar close to Ghaziabad the place Sharma runs his academy. “There is no word on the national camp yet, so I figured this is the best arrangement. I have no immediate plans to go to Patiala,” Chanu concluded.