Fit-again Mirabai Chanu finetunes technique on comeback trail
Mirabai Chanu aims to bounce back after a disappointing Paris Olympics, focusing on technique and training for upcoming Commonwealth and Asian Games.
New Delhi: It’s been almost a year since Mirabai Chanu finished an agonising fourth at the Paris Olympics. Beset with niggles and injuries for the better part of that Olympic cycle, Chanu exited the stage with a resigned smile and promise to return stronger.
“Paris was very disappointing. I knew an aggregate of 200kg will surely win me a medal, and to miss the podium after coming so close did hurt,” the Tokyo Games silver medallist, who missed out on a second podium after lifting one kg less in 49kg, said on the sidelines of the two-day ASMITA weightlifting league in Modinagar on Tuesday.
A three-month break followed after which Chanu went to St Louis, USA to consult Dr Aaron Horschig on a hip injury that had troubled her since the 2023 Asian Games. She also shifted base from NIS Patiala to national coach Vijay Sharma’s academy, where she also mentors the trainees.
Chanu will return to action at the Commonwealth championships in Ahmedabad next month (Aug 24-30), one of the three mandatory qualifiers for next year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. It will offer the 30-year-old an opportunity to test her technique. She competed at the trials for the Commonwealth championships in Patiala last month and, in Sharma’s assessment, “performed beyond expectations”.
“I have been working on slight tweaks in my technique, particularly in snatch,” said Chanu, currently training at 70-80% of her load capacity. She has been trying to snatch 90kg for a few years now, but the technical work has almost always hit the injury roadblock.
“We did some technical work before Tokyo Olympics, but the rhythm was disrupted after repeated injuries in the Paris cycle,” said Sharma. “However, we are confident she can snatch 90kg. She crossed that mark in training in the lead up to Paris. She would also lift 115-116kg in clean and jerk, so we were confident of a medal in Paris,” he added.
At the Games, Chanu failed to go beyond 88kg in snatch and failed in her opening clean and jerk effort of 111kg.
“I had lifted much more in training but things didn’t work out on the day that mattered. That hasn’t dented my resolve. My goals are still the same,” she said. Snatching 90kg and winning an elusive Asian Games medal next year are among them.
It will need some doing considering the challenge that Chinese and North Korean lifters present. Chanu is aware of the competition but is unfazed.
“Recently a junior lifter in China snatched 90kg, so I really need to hit that mark,” the double World Championships medallist said.
“Snatch is all technique while clean and jerk is more power based. How to lift and progress, how to control the back, execution of the second pull, all those aspects need technical refinement. These are little changes but over the years, the body develops muscle memory which is hard to let go.”
Chanu is also working to add speed to her first pull – the motion where an athlete lifts the bar to her waist.
“The body should be in sync in that motion, but that has been my weakness since the start. We have added speed to the second pull and also on the hip thrust. The technique can’t be corrected instantly. We have to work on it carefully because my body is ageing.”
Weight management, in this Olympic cycle, too will be daunting. With the world body rejigging weight classes, Chanu has now moved to 48kg, a division in which she became world champion in 2017.
“Controlling weight will be difficult because my maintenance weight now has to be around 49.5kg. It looks just one kg from outside but requires a very close look at the training programme,” she said. Her training load is still the same – she was in 49kg earlier – but it has been broken up to ensure the body is not over exerted, Sharma said.
“We are peaking towards the World Championships in October and from there, the focus will shift towards the Asian Games,” Chanu said.
