Winning gold medal in Commonwealth Championships was memorable, says Mirabai Chanu

New Delhi, Sep 12 (IANS) Nearly a year after finishing fourth in the 2024 Paris Olympics, Mirabai Chanu made a triumphant return by winning the gold medal in the women’s 48kg category in the Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships.

On return to competing and making a return to the 48kg category, Mirabai, the silver medalist in Tokyo Olympics, said winning the gold medal in that competition made for memorable moment in her career.

“I am really very happy. It has been a long time since I won a medal at the Championships. It was also my first competition after making a change to the 48kg category.”

“It was memorable as this is the first time I have won a medal for India in this category in the competition. I am very happy,” in a conversation with IANS on Friday, on the sidelines of PlayCom 2025 summit.

In that competition, Mirabai lifted 84kg in snatch and 109kg in clean and jerk to come first with a total of 193kg. The decision to cut one more kg to fit into the new weight category paid off as she qualified for the 2026 Commonwealth Games.

With one event ending, the instant planning starts for what comes next. For Mirabai, the next target will be to bring a medal for India in the World Weightlifting Championships, to be held in Førde, Norway from October 1-10.

“We, the entire Indian team, is preparing very well. We will try to win medals for everyone here. We will get to know what is going to happen on the day of the competition, but the Indian team is preparing very well for it,” added Mirabai.

Meanwhile, during a panel discussion centered around the Olympics at the summit, former India women’s hockey captain Rani Rampal spoke on the team’s journey, including the heartbreak of losing out on a medal at the Tokyo Olympics and what’s needed for the side’s growth in future.

"My journey has been a long one. Sometimes, we don’t even want to recall our first Olympics. But that experience gave us a lot of learnings. Tokyo was completely different - after losing our first three games, everyone had lost hope in us.”

“But we kept believing in ourselves, won the next two matches, and then defeated the table-toppers Australia in the quarterfinals. The whole country was watching hockey that day and it was the real change."

"The most important thing is consistent performance. I won’t deny that women’s hockey has had its highs and lows. I truly hope the team wins the Asia Cup and qualifies for the World Cup.”

“The transition phase is always very challenging. We often talk only about medals, but not about progress. The question is - how do we support athletes going through that transition? That’s why we need to put much more focus on grassroots development,” she said.

--IANS

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