2024 Paris Olympics: Mirabai Chanu aims to lift 90 kg in snatch

Indian weightlifter Mirabai Chanu aims to lift 90 kg in snatch at the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics. The Indian weightlifter, competing in the 49 kg category, has a personal best of 88 kg in snatch and is gunning to emulate that at the Summer Games.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics silver medalist said she is also looking at ‘managing all the muscles in my body’ as she aims to become the first Indian weightlifter to win two Olympic medals, if she manages to finish on the podium in Paris.

Mirabai, along with her team, will train at La Ferte-Milon in France from the first week of July. The Manipur-based weightlifter, in an exclusive interaction with the Sports Authority of India, said she is looking to manage her training schedule well to suit the demands of the sport. “Weightlifting is a sum of many parts. Lot of gym exercises are required as every body part plays its role. Certain muscles like the back, knee and shoulder have to be in perfect condition. Muscle strength matters a lot to lift weights over 200 kgs and more importantly, I can’t skip training. If I leave training for a day, it will take a week for me to recover and bring my muscles to perfect state. If there is no strength or endurance, one can’t lift weights. It’s a tough process and one can’t afford to relax. Let’s say to lift 85 kg in snatch, one has to lift 50 kgs at least 100 times and then gradually scale up,” she said, on the sidelines of a training session at the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports in Patiala.

The upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics will be Mirabai’s third successive Olympic Games and the diminutive Manipuri is keen on making it count. The ace lifter participated in only one competition – the World Cup – in the season and came up with a combined lift of 184 kg to finish 12. It was enough for Mirabai to seal an Olympic berth.

The 29-year-old, who was plagued by injuries in the past, said the decision to take part in only one competition and qualify for the Paris Olympics was a well-thought decision. “After the Asian Games injury, the World Cup was my first competition. I was certainly apprehensive about picking up another injury. I didn’t want to spoil my Paris chances. So, yes, that injury fear was there. For me, injury management and staying stress free will be important. I have to do the things that helped me recover. Injuries and pain are companions for us. You never know when they will strike. We have to conquer them and the Paris Olympics will tell me how well I have managed these aspects of the sport,” she explained.

Mirabai is a part of the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) among various other athlete funding programmes. The Sports Ministry, under the TOPS, has spent over INR 2.7 crore for her training in the ongoing Olympic cycle.

Although she will be participating in her third Olympics and is gunning to win another medal, an Asian Games medal has eluded Mirabai. “An Asian Games medal seems to be jinxed, I definitely want to win one and I was just one lift away from getting one in Hangzhou when the injury came. Even after so much preparation, I got injured. That hurts for sure but at the same time, injuries make me determined to come back stronger for India. So, I never had negative thoughts about quitting,” she said.

Mirabai signed off by saying that it is a dream to win another Olympic medal. “For any weightlifter to take part in two Olympics is a big thing. To compete at the world level is tough. Like Tokyo, I will again count on the prayers of all Indians and of course, it’s going to be God’s wish on that day in Paris. It will be a dream for me and my family to win a second Olympic medal but I also know that even the best of preparation can fail. So, let’s hope for the best.”