Weightlifter Meerabai Chanu lifted a total of 201 kg in the 49 kg category of the Commonwealth Games and won the gold medal for India. After the snatch round, Chanu gained 12 kg and set his record.
She lifted 84 kg in her first attempt. She then equaled her previous record by lifting 88 kg in her second attempt. With that, she continued in the gold medal position. In that sense it is also considered a snatch achievement.
In the third attempt, Meerabai tried to lift 90 kg. Earlier, Meerabai had already won silver medal for motherland in Tokyo Olympics. She was expected to win gold in the 49 kg category.
Meanwhile, Meerabai Chanu has opened India's gold medal account in the Commonwealth Games on Saturday.
Weightlifter Sanketh Mahadev won the silver medal in the men's 55 kg category on Saturday.
Notably, Meera won gold at the 2017 World Weightlifting Championships by lifting almost four times her weight, 194 kg. Through this, Meerabai became the first Indian woman to do so in the last 22 years.
Meera did not even eat food on the match day to maintain her weight of 48 kg. To prepare for this day, Meera didn't even attend her real sister's wedding last year. Tears of joy welled up in Meera's eyes after winning the medal for India. Her fans say that today is a witness to all the hardships she went through since 2016.
Meerabai has been the under-15 champion in the last 11 years and the junior champion in 17 years. Seeing Kunjurani, Meera dreamed of becoming a weightlifting champion herself. As a result of chasing that dream, Meera broke her ideal heroine's 12-year national record in 2016. The weight she lifted then was 192 kg.
Chanu's journey from a poor showing at the 2016 Rio Olympics to a medal at the Tokyo Olympics has been incredible. But when he went to the Rio Olympics, it was a different story.
'It's Not End, Yet'
It's one thing at events like the Olympics when you're holding other players back, but not being able to finish your game properly can be a demoralizing incident for any player.
The same thing happened to India's weightlifter Mirabai Chanu in 2016.
Meera was second in her category at the Olympics and her name was marked as 'not completing the phase' at the Olympics. On the day of the Rio Olympics, Meera's hands froze like ice when she tried to lift a weight that she could easily lift in her daily training. Since it was night time in India, very few Indians saw the scene.
When Indian sports fans read the news in the morning, Mirabai became Willy in the eyes of many of them overnight. After 2016 she suffered severe depression and faced counseling sessions every week.
After this defeat, Meera took the decision to quit the sport. But the desire to win that was hidden in her helped to come back stronger in international competitions without giving up.
Mirabai Chanu won the gold medal in the 48 kg weightlifting event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games held in Australia.
Weight lifting exercise started with bamboo
Meerabai Chanu was born and brought up in a small village in Manipur, the northeastern state of India on 8th August 1994. She was known to be very talented from his childhood. Her village was 200 km from Imphal, with no special facilities.
At that time, Kunjurani Devi, a female weightlifter from Manipur, went on to star in the Athens Olympics.
The scene settled in Meera's mind. Meerabai, the youngest of six siblings in her family, waited for the right day to fulfill her dream. In the face of Meera's insistence, her parents had no choice but to allow her wish to be fulfilled. When she started practicing in 2007, Meerabai first practiced using bamboo as there was no iron rod.
As there was no training center in the village, she traveled 50-60 km to get trained. To increase her body strength, daily diet of milk and chicken was required, but for Meera, who belongs to a middle-class family, it was not possible on a daily basis. However, this setback did not stop her achievement. In front of her determination, all barriers broke down and now she stands before the world as India's record star.