After the Tokyo Olympics, Saikhom Mirabai Chanu, who won a silver medal in weightlifting for India, finished fourth in the women’s 49 kg category at the Paris Games on Wednesday.
The Manipur lifter admitted that she felt weak while on stage and attributed her weakness to being on her third day of her menstrual cycle.
At the end of two rounds of competition, Mirabai scored a total of 199kg which was lesser than her 202kg performance that won her a silver medal in Tokyo. Her best ever is 205kg which she accomplished during the 2020 Asian Championship.
“I am happy with my performance… I tried to give my best to have one more medal for India. With such short time for recovery from injury…I was able to do this but it wasn’t meant to be…” She said, ”It was my periods’ third day and in Tokyo, it was my second day as well so it affects your body also.”
Mirabai opened by lifting 85kg successfully during snatch round. Her second attempt at 88kg was unsuccessful though. The initial number she had declared for second try is 86 but later changed it to 88 just before her turn.
In the last snatch attempt, Mirabai equalled her personal best and national record by lifting an 88 kg barbell. This act put Thai Surodchana Khambao also at the same level leaving both athletes sharing the third spot after snatch round.
“In warm up everything went good with me. Snatch (88), I gave my best. Clean and jerk also went very nice. In first jerk I fumbled a little bit..On stage walk I felt a little weak because of third day (of period). It was going well. Whatever coach has said I did. It is just destiny that a medal slipped out of my hand,” she added.
She failed to lift 111 kg in the clean and jerk event during her first attempt, even though she set a weight higher than that of her competitors. However she was not discourage and made a second attempt at the same weight which she lifted successfully to finish as joint second with Hou Zhihui.
However Surodchana’s successful lift on her second attempt at 112kg increased her total to 200kg pushing Mirabai down to fourth position.
Unfortunately for the Indian weightlifter who is now aged twenty-nine, not only did she miss out on an opportunity to improve on this but also failed to make lift number one when it mattered most as she attempted her last lift at 114 kg without being able to complete it thus leaving her with just 199 kg sum.
