May 08, 2024
Instagram and Twitter/Mirabai Chanu
Indian weightlifter and Olympics 2020 silver medal winner Saikhom Mirabai Chanu has made the country proud once again. The 27-year-old athlete won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in the women’s 49-kg weightlifting competition by lifting 201 kg.
Mirabai shared photos with her gold medal on Twitter and one of the users of the social media platform tagged Hollywood star Chris Hemsworth, the eponymous hero of the superhero film ‘Thor’, and said: “Time for Thor to give up his hammer”.
Hours after the tag and comment, Chris responded to the tweet and wrote: “She is worthy! Congrats, Saikhom, you legend". If you read/watched about Mirabai’s win but don’t know who she is, here are a few facts about the celebrated weightlifter.
Born on August 8, 1994, she comes from a small village near Manipur’s capital city Imphal and has been a part of this sport since 2014. And she initially trained at the Khuman Lampak training centre in Imphal.
Mirabai’s initial training period was an easy one. She used to hitch a ride with truck drivers to journey from her village to the training centre. Last year, in an interview, she had said that she would like to meet those truck drivers and pay them back for all the free rides.
She is the second women to earn a medal in weightlifting after the famous Karnam Malleshwari in 2000.
Mirabai was awarded the Padma Shri and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna awards in 2018. This was after she won a gold medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
She became the first Indian at the Olympics 2020 (Tokyo Olympics) to win a medal. She made history by giving India its first silver medal in women's 49 kg weightlifting competition by lifting a total of 202 kg
The Manipur government rewarded her Rs 1 crore after she returned to India with her silver medal from Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Currently, she is part of the Manipur Police as the additional superintendent of police (sports).