General · EdgepediaSeptember 17, 20267 min read

Mirabai Chanu

Saikhom Mirabai Chanu (born 1994) is an Indian weightlifter from Manipur who won silver at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in the women's 49 kg class, is a three-time Commonwealth Games champion, and a former world champion.¹ In September 2026 she completed her major-medal set by winning silver at the Asian Games in Nagoya, Japan, India's first Asian Games weightlifting medal in 28 years.²

Key fact	Detail
Born	1994, Nongpok Kakching, Imphal East district, Manipur, into a Meitei farming household¹
Olympic medal	Silver, women's 49 kg, Tokyo 2020, with a total of 202 kg and an Olympic-record 115 kg clean and jerk³
Commonwealth Games	Silver at Glasgow 2014 (48 kg), gold at Gold Coast 2018, gold at Birmingham 2022 (49 kg), gold at Glasgow 2026 (48 kg)⁴
World titles	Gold at the 2017 World Weightlifting Championships in Anaheim (194 kg total); silver at the 2025 Worlds in Førde, Norway⁵^•⁶
Asian Games	Silver, women's 49 kg, Nagoya 2026, total 198 kg; India's first Asian Games weightlifting medal since Karnam Malleswari's silver in 1998²
Personal best	205 kg total (89 kg snatch + 116 kg clean and jerk), first achieved at the Asian Weightlifting Championships in the 49 kg class and equalled in the 48 kg class at the 2026 National Championships⁴
Long-time coach	Vijay Sharma, who manages her training, recovery, and diet⁷

Early life

Chanu was born in Nongpok Kakching, in Manipur's Imphal East district, into a farming family with six other children.¹^•⁵ Her family noticed her strength when she was 12 and could easily lift a bundle of firewood considered too heavy for her elder brother.⁵ She modeled herself on Kunjarani Devi, the decorated Manipuri weightlifter who won seven world championship silver medals between 1989 and 1997.⁵

Training infrastructure near her village was scarce. She has said there were no weightlifting centers where she lived, so she traveled 60 km every day to train, often hitching rides with truck drivers to reach the Sports Academy in Manipur; after the Tokyo medal she invited those drivers to thank them.⁸^•⁵ The Manipur police service later gave her a career off the platform.¹

Commonwealth Games career

The Commonwealth Games have been the most consistent thread of Chanu's career. She won silver on debut at Glasgow 2014 in the 48 kg class, where her best clean and jerk was 95 kg, gold at Gold Coast 2018, and successfully defended her title at Birmingham 2022 in the 49 kg class, lifting 113 kg in the clean and jerk, more than twice her body weight.⁴^•⁹ In the eight years between her Glasgow and Birmingham clean and jerks she added 24 kg to that lift.⁹

Glasgow 2026. After the sport's weight-class revision moved her down to 48 kg, Chanu returned to Glasgow for a fourth Commonwealth Games and won the women's 48 kg event on 26 July 2026, completing a three-peat of Commonwealth titles and taking India's first gold medal of the 2026 Games.⁴^•¹⁰ She dropped her first clean and jerk attempt, then lifted 105 kg on her second attempt to seal the gold before the competition ended.¹¹ She deliberately avoided chasing symbolic milestones such as a 90 kg snatch in Glasgow, preserving her body for the Asian Games that followed.¹²

World and Olympic competition

At the 2017 World Weightlifting Championships in Anaheim, California, Chanu won gold with a total of 194 kg, becoming the first Indian weightlifter in over two decades to claim a world title and only the second after Karnam Malleswari.⁵^•¹³

Her Olympic record is a study in contrast. At Rio 2016 she failed to register a single valid attempt in the clean and jerk, crashed out, contemplated early retirement, and was talked out of quitting by her mother Tombi.⁵ At Tokyo 2020, held in July 2021, she won silver with a 202 kg total, including a 115 kg clean and jerk that stood as an Olympic record, making her India's first medallist of those Games and only the second Indian woman after P. V. Sindhu to take an Olympic silver.³^•⁵ At Paris 2024 she finished fourth in the 49 kg class with a total of 199 kg, missing the bronze medal by a single kilogram.¹⁴^•¹⁵

Injuries and rebuilding

Injury has shaped Chanu's career as much as her lifts. A lower-back injury after the 2018 Commonwealth Games kept her out of that year's Asian Games and World Championships, and Indian doctors could not diagnose the problem for months.⁵^•¹³ In late 2020 her coach took her to St. Louis, USA, to see Aaron Horschig, a former American weightlifter turned physiotherapist, whose evaluation listed right shoulder instability and weakness, left shoulder mobility restrictions, left hip problems, and backache.¹³ The reworked technique and rehabilitation carried her to the 2021 Asian Championships in Tashkent, where she won bronze and set a world record of 119 kg in the clean and jerk.¹³

The association with Horschig has continued: the two have held a video call every Thursday since November 2020 to review her training and recovery.¹⁶ A hip injury sustained in 2023 shadowed her through the Paris cycle, and she has said that inconsistent training and the recurring injury cost her a medal there.¹⁵^•¹⁷

The 2026 season and the Asian Games medal

The 2025 Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships in Ahmedabad opened her record campaign: she won the women's 48 kg gold and raised the championship snatch record from 80 kg to 84 kg.¹⁸ At the 2026 National Weightlifting Championships in Modinagar she bettered three of her own national records, broke the national snatch and clean and jerk marks, and equalled her 205 kg personal-best total in the new 48 kg class.⁴^•¹⁹

The Asian Games had been the one gap in her record. She had finished fourth at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou with a 191 kg total while not fully fit, and had said that every time the Asian Games came around, things somehow went downhill.⁵^•²⁰ The medal ended India's 28-year wait for an Asian Games weightlifting medal, dating to Karnam Malleswari's silver at Bangkok 1998.² Chanu has described the result as peace and closure after four Asian Games cycles, and has said that in weightlifting the Asian Games are as demanding as the Olympics because of the strength of North Korea, China, and other Asian nations.²²^•²³

Technique and physical profile

Chanu stands 4 feet 8 inches tall, a build typical of the lighter weight classes, where shorter limbs reduce the distance the barbell must travel.⁹ Her strength lies in the clean and jerk, the two-part lift in which the bar is brought to the shoulders and then driven overhead; observers have described her clean and jerk as near-perfect.¹⁷^•⁹ After her injuries she also changed her snatch technique as part of the comeback.¹⁷

Beyond competition, she now trains around 40 young girls in Modinagar, several of whom train alongside her daily, and she has said their pursuit of her old goals is what sustains her drive at 31.¹⁵

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Sports, games, and recreation › Individual sports and outdoor recreation › Athletics, gymnastics, and strength sports › Weightlifters and weightlifting doping

Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 21, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 12, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026 · Last review: Oct 21, 2026

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