Mirabai Chanu finished fourth in the women’s 49kg weightlifting category in the Paris Olympics 2024. She lifted a total of 199kg across the snatch and clean and jerk categories, but wasn’t enough to finish at the podium.
Her performance is commendable given her return from an injury. But heartbreakingly, her closest competitor lifted just one kilogram more than her, resulting in a narrow defeat.
Mirabai Chanu finishes fourth in weightlifting 49kg category
#WATCH | Paris: Indian Weightlifter Mirabai Chanu speaks on finishing 4th in women's 49 kg weightlifting event at #ParisOlympics2024
— ANI (@ANI) August 7, 2024
She says, "I tried my best to win a medal for the country but I missed it today…It is a part of the game, we all sometimes win and sometimes… pic.twitter.com/hPyYCt7AOL
Surodchana Khambao of Thailand finished third on the podium, having lifted 200kg across the two categories.
The mere fact that Chanu made it to the Olympics is proof of her fighting spirit after her return from a freak injury. The weightlifter spent a lot of time recovering, and had a best of 184kg at the IWF World Championship earlier this year in Phuket.
Her personal best is 205kg – 86kg in snatch and 119kg in clean and jerk. By those standards, she has worked a lot on her snatch capabilities given she beat her previous best. However, her clean and jerk decreased significantly following her hip injury, and has led to her coming up short by the tightest of margins.
