Kolkata,
\nCWG gold medallist Mirabai Chanu had showed her weightlifting prowess even as a 12-year-old when she would comfortably lift more firewood than her elder brother.<\/p>\n
At 23, Mirabai has the world at her feet as she earned India\u2019s first gold medal at Gold Coast after smashing the Games records in 48kg category snatch, clean and jerk.<\/p>\n
Born to a poor family in Nongpok Kakching village about 20 kilometres from Imphal, the youngest among six siblings, Mirabai would go to collect firewood from a nearby hill with her brother Saikhom Sanatomba Meitei, who is four years elder to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day I could not lift the bundle of firewood but Mira easily lifted it and took it home, about two kilometres away. She was about 12 years old then,\u201d Sanatomba told PTI, amid the noise of firecrackers in celebration of Mirabai\u2019s success at her home.<\/p>\n
It was the earliest memory of Mirabai that Sanatomba could recall on a day the world champion weightlifter lived up to the reputation and brought laurels to the country at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to play football then and I could see the passion in her to do something. She gradually went on to join weightlifting,\u201d Sanatomba, a state level footballer at junior level, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe always has the passion to achieve big. She never put her under pressure and is always ice-cool, something that was evident in her flawless lift.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mirabai smashed the Commonwealth and the Games record in snatch, pulling off clean lifts in all her three attempts (80kg, 84kg and 86kg) to secure India\u2019s first gold.<\/p>\n
Miles away her family along with about 15 village folks sat glued to the TV in the morning to watch Mirabai in action.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could see tears of joy dropping from my father and mother . They were speechless for a moment,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The villagers came in and took her mother to celebrate with a traditional folk dance Thabal Chongba and smeared colours on each other\u2019s face, dancing in a circle.<\/p>\n
An Army sepoy posted in Sringar, Sanatomba is on a holiday for his son\u2019s feeding ceremony .<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be a double celebration tomorrow, we will make Mira\u2019s favourite food Kangsoi . Sweets were being distributed since morning today and you could still hear the firecrackers late into the evening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mirabai\u2019s father is a lower level employee at the Pubic Works Department in Imphal, while her mother runs a small shop at their village.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of financial crisis for her and they could hardly support her. Despite all the hardships, she has reached a stage we never thought of… All these brought tears to my father and mother,\u201d Sanatomba said.<\/p>\n
Things, however, have changed since the success of Mirabai, a silver medalist in CWG Glasgow 2014 and a gold medallist in the Commonwealth Championships in Australia in July last year.<\/p>\n
Their family now hopes that Mirabai is offered a Deputy Superintendent of Police post after the CWG success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kolkata, CWG gold medallist Mirabai Chanu had showed her weightlifting prowess even as a 12-year-old when she would comfortably lift more firewood than her elder brother. At 23, Mirabai has the world at her feet as she earned India\u2019s first gold medal at Gold Coast after smashing the Games records in 48kg category snatch, clean […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27152,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27153,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27151\/revisions\/27153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}