One Olympic medal. Three World Championship medals. Three Commonwealth Games medals. One Asian Championships medal. And now, an Asian Games medal.
At the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Mirabai Chanu Saikhom strode out for the 49kg women’s weightlifting event, snatched 87kg, clean and jerked 111kg and walked out Asian Games silver medalist. Mirabai has done it, finally. It was always known but unofficial; having secured the one piece of silverware missing from her trophy cabinet, she has also confirmed her status as India’s greatest ever weightlifter.
It ended a drought for India, a 28-year-old wait for an Asiad medal, since Karnam Malleswari won silver in the women’s 63kg at the Bangkok Asian Games in 1998. It also ended a painful wait for Mirabai. She’d gone everywhere and won everything — that Tokyo Olympic silver is India’s best achievement at that stage. She’s one of just two Indians to win gold at the world championships (the other being Malleswari). She’s a bonafide legend at the Commonwealth Games level. The Asian Games, though – literally, and metaphorically, pain was the one emotion Mirabai had associated with the Asiad till Wednesday .
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She finished ninth on her debut in 2014. She missed Jakarta 2018 with a back injury and, in Guangzhou 2023, the combination of a niggling back injury and the quality-packed field in her category saw her pushed down to fourth. There was a very real fear gnawing at her that this Asiad-medal-sized hole would remain through her career, tarnish her legacy (it wouldn’t have, but that’s not how champion athletes think).
Take her words right after her third straight CWG gold at Glasgow a couple of months ago, where she said she was happy about the gold, but her focus was almost entirely on the Asian Games. A few days after, she told SAI media that she had gone straight back to training after the Glasgow win. “In fact, I did not go home (to Manipur), and I have set myself a challenge — ‘no going home till I win a medal at the Asian Games.'”
Her challenge was considerably eased by the fact that traditional weightlifting superpower China didn’t have an entry in this category, but that’s the hand she was dealt. And she played it superbly. Her silver, behind (arguably) the greatest weightlifter of all time in her category, North Korea’s Ri Song Gum, was a result of clear focus and a simple gameplan: lift within limits, don’t wreck the body.
Mirabai, who’s been a walking, lifting collection of injuries and niggles for some time now, told SAI, “We have been careful with fitness.” Coming into Aichi-Nagoya she said she was feeling good with her body. And it showed.
In the snatch, where Ri started with 94kg, Mirabai started with 83kg, before progressing to 85kg and then 87kg. She ended the snatch event in third, just a kilo behind Indonesia’s Luluk Wijayana. She has a personal best of 89kg in the snatch, but this wasn’t the time to push her body, she (and coach Vijay Sharma) decided, for she knew she could get the Indonesian in the clean and jerk. They then left Ri to her own devices (she lifted a world record best of 94kg in the snatch): there was simply no place for ego lifting in this drought-ending quest.
In the C&J, Mirabai overtook Wijayana with her first lift of 107kg and when the Indonesian failed at that same weight, a silver was assured. A simple 111kg second lift gave her a very respectable total of 198kg, and she didn’t even bother with a third to try and beat the unbeatable Ri, who started with 116kg and ended with a world record 121kg lift for a combined total of 215kg (obviously, a world record). For Mirabai, that mattered little – she finally had the one medal whose absence had gnawed at her for more than a decade.
There is talk that she will step up to the 53kg category for the LA Olympics in 2028, but she will do so having won medals in every major event possible. Now, that’s how champion athletes do it.
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