Delhi, India: Mirbai Chanu had a wrist injury at the National Games this year, making it hard for her to even hold the barbell. The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist was forced to manage the injury because the World Championships were just two months away. And Chanu performed well there. All the “pain” was worth it when she won silver in the 49 kg weight division at the World Championships.
Chanu finished in second place on the podium with a total of 200 kilograms after lifting 87 kilograms in Snatch and 113 kilograms in Clean and Jerk. But she and her coach, Vijay Sharma, stopped adding more iron plates there. With only a year and a half remaining in the weightlifting qualification cycle for the Paris 2024 Olympics, which began on August 1, 2022, they didn’t want to risk further wrist injury.
However, in Bogota, Colombia, the world record holder in clean and jerk (119 kg) had to summon every ounce of her grit and energy.
She failed to lift 87 kilograms in snatch, but she did lift with a lot of difficulty. In the past, Chanu has mentioned reaching 90 kg in snatch as a goal, but this time, he was talking about staying on the podium with an injury. 87 kilograms sufficed for that.
She is still having trouble with snatch’s wide grip. When Chanu is squatting and receiving the bar overhead, the weak wrist muscles are at their most vulnerable.
Her first clean and jerk lift of 111 kilograms also had red lights, but she pulled it off on her second try and added two more kilograms for 113 kilograms, earning her the silver medal behind China’s Jiang Huihua, who lifted 206 kilograms (93 kilograms, 113 kilograms) for gold. Hou Zhihui, Huihua’s compatriot and the current 49 kg Olympic champion, took bronze with a weight of 198 kg (89 kg, 109 kg).
Chanu has long desired to defeat a Chinese competitor and Tokyo Olympics gold medalist. China did not participate in the competition that was held in California when she won gold (48 kg) at the World Championships in 2017. She came in fourth place in 2019 and didn’t compete in the World Championships in 2021.
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