Mirabai Chanu, despite a wrist injury, managed to win a silver medal at the World Championships with a total lift of 200kg. After her heroics in the Tokyo Olympics and the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, Chanu has delivered yet again and has set the Indian flag flying high. Chanu was competing in the 49kg category and managed to lift 87kg in snatch and in 'clean and jerk' her best effort was a lift of 113kg, on Tuesday night.
It was due to Chanu's efforts despite the injury that India finished behind China's Jiang Huihua, who ended up winning the gold with 206kg (93kg+113kg). Tokyo Olympics champion Hou Zhihua 198kg (89kg+109kg) took home the bronze medal. Chanu's head coach Vijay Sharma said that the 2017 World Champion Chanu had hurt her wrist during a training session in September and had also participated in the National Games with the injury in October.
Chanu's head coach further opened up and said:
We were not taking any pressure for this event. This is the weight Mira lifts regularly. From now we will start increasing the weights and improving. We couldn't do much (about the injury) because we didn't want to skip the World Championships. Now, we will focus on her wrist because we have a lot of time before the next event.
Interestingly, Chanu is a world record holder in this category, and this time around she succeeded in her last two attempts of 111kg and 113kg to collect her overall clean and jerk silverware. This happens to be Chanu's second medal at the World Championships, she had won the first in 2017. In her final attempt, the 28-year-old, who had her wrist bandaged, wobbled a little but was able to hoist the 87kg barbell, which is a kilogram less than her personal best in the section. Fifth after the snatch section, Chanu set the highest clean and jerk entry weight but her first attempt of 111kg was deemed a no-lift as her left elbow wobbled a little. The Indian camp challenged the decision but the judges upheld it. Chanu had an underwhelming snatch session. She started with an 84kg lift but her second attempt of 87kg was deemed a no-lift. Expectedly, Chanu didn't go for the much-awaited 90kg lift.
As of now, India have four more lifters in the fray. S Bindiyrani Devi (59kg), Chanambam Rishikanta Singh (61kg), Achinta Sheuli (73kg), and Gurdeep Singh (+109kg) will compete in their respective categories.
