Chanu Saikhom Mirabai Biography

Chanu Saikhom Mirabai is an Indian athlete in the field of weightlifting. She has maintained a continuous presence in the international sports since 2014. She has won a multiple of World Championships and medals in the Commonwealth games in the category of 48 kg. In 2014, she won a silver medal in Commonwealth games held in Glasgow. In 2017 and 2018, she made India proud by winning a gold medal in the games.

Early life

Born on August 8, 1994, she was raised in Imphal, Manipur. Chanu Saikhom Mirabai is trained by one of the most celebrated weightlifting sportswomen in India, Kunjarani Devi.

Career

In the 2014 Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow, she shone by winning the silver medal in the weight class of 48 kg.
She further rose to limelight in 2016 when Olympics trials were happening in Patiala. She broke the 12-year national record of 48 kg weightlifting held previously by Kunjarana Devi, the women’s national coach. However, she could not perform well at the 2016 Olympics event as she could not lift weight in the clean and jerk section in any of the 3 attempts. Nonetheless, she won a gold medal at the 12th South Asian Games, held at Guwahati in 2016.

Chanu Saikhom Mirabai became India’s top weightlifting champion and the best Olympics hope after she won a gold medal in the 2017’s World Weightlifting Championship. However, she succumbed to pressure and couldn’t perform well for the Olympics. But Chanu who became nation’s pride in 2014 after winning a silver in the Commonwealth Games, bounced back in 2017 winning the gold medal in the 48 kg category of the games. She repeated the history again by winning a gold in the same category at the Commonwealth event in 2018.

Awards

She was given a cash prize of ₹2 million by N. Biren Singh, the Chief Minister of Manipur.

She became the recipient of Padma Shri in 2018.