Record-shattering Mirabai Chanu bags India's first gold at Birmingham Commonwealth Games

It must have felt slightly strange for Mirabai Chanu, bossing the weightlifting area with nobody to challenge her. Such a different scenario from the events of Tokyo Olympics last year, when the Chinese Hou Zhihu was lifting weights as if they were shopping bags, pushing our diminutive Manipur girl to come up with her own special in an epic 49-kg lift-off. Then it had got her a terrific silver, setting the stage for a memorable Indian Olympic medal windfall. It was July 24, 2021 then; it is July 30 now. Today. In Birmingham, you could say, she was on her own. Lifting a whopping 29 kg more than the second-placed Marie Hanitra Ranaivosoa of Mauritius. Mirabai lifted a total of 201 kg – 88 kg in snatch and 113 kg in clean and jerk – to create a new CWG record as well as her own personal best. There was a banner from the stands that made Hindi-following people present at the National Exhibition Centre in Solihull burst into laughter. “Mira tum ho India ka hira (Mira you are India’s diamond).” Truly she is a diamond, and for sure she is India’s lucky charm, the country’s talisman kick-starting things with a gold medal-winning performance at the 2022 Commonwealth Games on Saturday.

Even before the Games, it was more or less a foregone conclusion who was winning the gold medal in women’s 49kg category. Mirabai was miles ahead of the competition. Before the CWG, she was a whopping 25kg better than the second-best in the competition. As the Indian tricolor went up amid the strains of the National anthem that filled the National Exhibition Centre, giving goose bumps to the Indians present there,Mirabai had gone 29kg better than the silver medallist. At the medal ceremony, Mirabai was smiling ear to ear. It was quite different