New Delhi, Oct 6 A month after they returned from Tokyo, Saikhom Mirabai Chanu and Vijay Sharma are back at the gymnasium in Patiala's National Institute of Sports. Chanu, 27, is swinging a kettlebell up and down, then from left to right, as Sharma monitors. For the sports star-coach duo, this is their natural habitat, one where they feel at peace. The last 30 days have been unlike any Chanu has ever experienced in her life. The weightlifter, who won silver in the 49kg category at the Tokyo Olympics, has had to swap her usual eat-train-sleep-repeat routine for a packed event-interview-shoot-repeat schedule. In this time, Chanu has met countless ministers, sports stars, film stars and several other important people. Everywhere she goesa photoshoot, a television studio, a felicitation functionthey want a selfie, they want to get as close as possible to her medal, perhaps even touch it. And they always order her a pizza.
Little Miss Sunshine
"I know all these meetings, functions is important too. All these people wanted me to do well and cheered me on to win a medal." And so, Chanu obliges all their requests, always with a smile that lights up a room. The high-watt smile did not leave her face on July 24 at the Tokyo International Forum, even when she couldn't complete her final lift. She had done enough a previous clean lift of 115kg, and 87kg in the snatch before that, adding up to a total of 202kg had won her the silver and redemption. "I almost forgot where I was standing," she recollects with a laugh. "Then the announcer took my name and I realised, 'Oh, this is the Olympic podium!'" In an arena sans spectators and on a podium where masked victors girdled medals around their own necks, Chanu's silver opened India's account in Tokyo on the very first day of the Games.
Mind Games
Chanu has what you would call a sunny disposition. And it inevitably shielded her arduous journey to Olympic silver. Five years ago, competing at her first Olympics in Rio, Chanu had crashed out of the competition after failing to register even one lift in the clean and jerk section of the event. It crushed her confidence, and the then 21-year-old cried all the way from the arena to her room in the Olympic Village, slipping into a protracted depressive episode in the months to come. "I still don't know what happened to me that day," she says. "It felt like I had forgotten what to do." Back in India, she was ready to give up weightlifting altogether, as she felt she had let everybody down.
"Everyone told me I was young, and it was not the end of the world my mother and my coach especially. But it was very tough for me to get out of that zone. It was a combination of disappointment, anger and losing all hope." Her supportive family's secure environment and a series of counselling sessions helped her regain her confidence and self-belief.
Winning Streak
In 2018, she became the Commonwealth Games champion but had to pull out of the Asian Games and World Championships due to a lower back injury. The same injury flared up in 2020, worsening her back and confining her to her room in Patiala
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