Mirabai Chanu wins historic maiden Asian Games silver in 49kg

Nagoya: Saikhom Mirabai Chanu finally ended her long wait for an Asian Games medal, clinching silver in the women’s 49kg weightlifting event here on Wednesday and becoming India’s first Asian Games weightlifting medallist in 28 years.

The 32-year-old from Manipur posted a combined total of 198kg — 87kg in the snatch and 111kg in the clean and jerk — at the Nagoya City Trade and Industry Centre to secure second place.

North Korea’s two-time Asian Games and world champion Ri Song-gum took gold with a total of 210kg (94kg snatch, 121kg clean and jerk), while Indonesia’s Wijayana Luluk Diani Tri finished third with 191kg (87kg snatch, 103kg clean and jerk).

With the Nagoya podium finish, Mirabai has now won medals at all three major multi-sport events — the Olympics, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games.

She also joins Karnam Malleshwari as the only Indian weightlifters to have medalled at all major international events, including the Olympics, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, World Championships and Asian and Commonwealth Championships.

Mirabai already had an Olympic silver, a world title and three Commonwealth Games golds, but the Asian Games medal had eluded her since her debut in 2014.

She finished ninth at the 2014 Asian Games, missed the 2018 Jakarta edition due to injury and placed fourth at the 2023 Hangzhou Games after a thigh injury disrupted her clean and jerk attempts.

Three years after winning her Olympic silver in Tokyo, Mirabai returned to Japan — the country where she had claimed her Olympic podium finish — and finally delivered the Asian Games medal she had been chasing since 2014.

Her career has seen both high points and setbacks: she failed to register a valid lift at the Rio 2016 Olympics, then bounced back with a silver at the Tokyo Games to establish herself among the world’s top lifters.

In Nagoya, she opened with an 87kg snatch and followed it with a successful 111kg clean and jerk to finish with a 198kg total.

The silver extended India’s medal tally at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games and ended a 28-year wait for a weightlifting medal at the continental showpiece, the last coming when Malleshwari won silver in Bangkok in 1998.

(Inputs from IANS)