Tokyo 2020: Mirabai Chanu bags silver

On 24^th July, 2021 Mirabai Chanu of India clinched a silver medal in weightlifting in the 49kg category in Tokyo 2020 Olympics. This ends a 21 year drought of winning a medal in this category.

Highlights

• Mirabai Chanu lifted a total of 202kg (87kg+115kg) to qin the silver medal in this competition. She bettered the record of Karnam Malleswari who had won a bronze medal in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
• The gold was won by China’s Hou Zhihui who lifted a total of 210kg, while Indonesia’s Aisah Windy Cantika won the bronze medal with a total of 194kg.
• In her first snatch attempt Mirabai Chanu attempted 84kg. She followed it by lifting 87kg in her next attempt and then raised the weight to 89kg.
• Gold medal winner Zhihui created a new Olympic record with an effort of 94kg. The Chinese lifter also holds the world record with 96kg in this category.
• In the clean jerk round, Mirabai Chanu who is this sections world record holder, in her first two attempts lifted 110kg and 115kg respectively. She, however, couldn’t raise it to 117kg in her final attempt but it was enough to win silver and earn a podium finish.

After realising that she had secured a medal she broke into celebrations to celebrate her win in the Olympics event.

Month: Current Affairs - July, 2021