The silence in the weightlifting hall at NIS Patiala is broken by the thud of weights dropped and the heavy grunts of men and women lifting twice their bodyweight. At the far corner, with soft instrumental playing in the backdrop, Mirabai Chanu is sweating it out, her flourescent shoes and bright smile contrasting with the staid surroundings.
Watching elite athletes train can be an immersive experience. With lifters, it is the contemplative routine in preparation followed by the speed, rhythm and demonstration of power and technique in the hoisting. It is a 95kg deadlift routine this time.
Barbell at her feet, eyes blank, back straight, she begins the lift. It is almost perfect, but something seems amiss. National coach Vijay Sharma shouts encouragement. “Show some josh, Mira. Show some anger,” he implores. And Chanu goes again, this time with more purpose, and more weight.
“Sometimes, during the lift, I see Paris,” she says, explaining the visualisation. “I feel the crowd. I see my competitors. As I lift the barbell, I try to live the nervousness and excitement. I also see myself on the podium. I see lifting 200-plus kg. That pushes me.”
One of India’s most decorated lifters, Chanu is in the middle of a testing phase. The injury suffered at the Hangzhou Asian Games — she fell with the weight to end up fourth and she was later diagnosed with hip tendonitis — kept her away from weights for four months. Early this year, she flew to St Louis, USA to start rehabilitation under her strength and conditioning expert, Aaron Horschig.
The 49kg lifter has touched 70% of her routine level, but the four-month layoff has pegged her back.
“Ours is a sport where if you don’t lift for a month, your body goes back by three months. I didn’t pick up a barbell for four months; imagine what that did to my strength,” she says. Harder to imagine is what that may have done to her psyche. Faltering at the stage that she so coveted, returning battered from the Asian Games, being wheeled into the aircraft with a swollen hip with the Paris Olympics less than a year away can play tricks with the mind. Chanu repeatedly found herself asking, “Why me?”
“It was frustrating, but I never felt like giving up. As athletes, we learn to live with injuries but this one happened at the worst possible time.
“Asian Games medal is the only honour missing from my cabinet. It is something that I always wanted, right from the time I picked up the sport. Even Olympics comes later because the Asiad competition can be tougher than the Olympics.”
In Hangzhou, North Korea’s Ri Song-gum broke the world record in clean and jerk (124kg) as well as overall lift (216kg) while China’s Jiang Huihua smashed the Games record in snatch with a 94kg effort. Chanu had only two legitimate lifts — one each in snatch (83kg) and clean and jerk (108kg) — with a below par tally of 191kg for fourth.
“I felt the pain during the warm-up itself. I felt discomfort in the hip joint while sitting and the pain grew as the competition progressed. During my clean and jerk lifts, I could feel a painful pinch in the joint. One lift is all it took for the dream to end.
“I looked at Vijay sir and asked, ‘What just happened?’ It was very tough to take. I was put on a wheelchair. The flight back home was long. I thought maybe winning the Asian Games is not in my destiny. But as the rehab went on, I started feeling better. I will push till the next Asiad if the body cooperates.”
First comes the build-up to the Paris Olympics. Her 49kg silver at the 2021 Tokyo Games was the inspiration for India’s best ever haul of seven medals.
Injuries have been a constant companion for Mirabai
She injured her lower back after the 2018 CWG to be sidelined for nine months, missing the Asian Games and World Championships. She calls it the worst injury of her career. In 2022, she suffered a rotator cuff, shoulder and wrist injury during a training session. She also complained of back pain in this period. Despite a dodgy wrist, she won World Championships silver at 2022 end.
At Hangzhou, her right hip gave up. Which means her last proper competition was at the 2023 Asian Championships in Jinju, South Korea where she finished sixth.
Despite the four month break after the Asian Games, she continued upper body training. She called her mother over for emotional support and hit the gym after consulting orthopaedic specialist, Dr Dinshaw Pardiwala. “I spent a lot of time in gym. My upper body became really strong. The biggest risk during rehabilitation is putting on weight, but I made sure I worked out and stayed disciplined.”
Still, there was loss of muscle mass, endurance and strength. “There was a significant loss of strength. She didn’t touch the barbell for four months and when she resumed lifting, we had to approach her as a complete rookie. Initially, lifting even 40kg was a struggle,” Sharma says.
Horschig says: “We first had to find out what movements or exercises were painful to perform, even with lighter weights, and remove them from her training.”
The staple single-leg squats and weighted squats were out of question and Horschig introduced Chanu to ‘lock clams’. Performed lying laterally, it involved getting Chanu to place her right foot over the left Achilles heel with the right pelvis rolled at a 45-degree angle. Chanu was then asked to lift her right knee without moving the pelvis.
“It was tough to begin with but gradually her glutes began to ease. I think she is ready to show the world how strong she is,” Horschig adds.
Chanu wants to go all out in her bid to be ready for Paris. “Not many Indians have won back-to-back Olympic medals; I would definitely like to be one of them,” she says.
Next up will be the Phuket World Cup, a mandatory Paris qualifier, which starts on March 31.
“I will certainly lift in Phuket because it has been a while since I got into the competitive zone. In Paris, snatching 90kg will certainly be one of my goals. I have hit that mark in practice a few times, so the mind and body know how it is done.”
While Indian weightlifting showed a lot of promise until two years back with a 10-medal haul in Birmingham Commonwealth Games, Chanu remains the only hope going into the Olympics.
“Nobody else has a chance to make it to Paris. We had a few promising lifters, but they just couldn’t maintain the performance. There is no pathbreaking talent on the horizon either,” says Sharma.
