Saikhom Mirabai Chanu (born 8 August 1994) is an Indian weightlifter from Manipur. She won the silver medal in the 49-kilogram class at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, India’s first Olympic silver in the sport, and was world champion in 2017. She has won three gold medals at the Commonwealth Games, the third at Glasgow in 2026, and in the same year won her first Asian Games medal.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Saikhom Mirabai Chanu |
| Born | 8 August 1994, Nongpok Kakching, Imphal East district, Manipur |
| Age | 32 |
| Sport | Weightlifting |
| Weight class | 48 kg and 49 kg |
| Olympics | 2016, 2020 (silver), 2024 (fourth) |
| World Championships | Gold (2017); silver (2022, 2025) |
| Commonwealth Games | Silver (2014); gold (2018, 2022, 2026) |
| Asian Games | Silver (2026) |
| Awards | Khel Ratna (2018), Padma Shri (2018) |
Early Life
She was born in a village about twenty kilometres from Imphal, the youngest of six children of a junior employee of the public works department and a mother who kept a small shop. The family cooked on firewood. When she was twelve, she found she could carry home from the hillside a bundle of wood that her elder brother could not lift.
She had wanted to be an archer. At the sports complex in Imphal the archery hall was closed the day she went, and she saw the weightlifters training instead. Soon afterwards she read about Kunjarani Devi, the Manipuri lifter who was among the best in the world, and made up her mind. The training centre was a long way off; she travelled there each morning on the sand trucks that plied the road, whose drivers gave her free lifts. She remembered them after Tokyo and invited them to her home.
Career
Early medals
She won silver in the 48-kilogram class at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014.
Rio
At the Olympic Games of 2016 she went in as a contender and failed with all three attempts in the clean and jerk, leaving without a total. She has spoken of the depression that followed and of thinking of giving up.
World champion
In November 2017, at Anaheim in the United States, she won the world title in the 48-kilogram class, the first Indian to do so since Karnam Malleswari two decades earlier. In 2018 she won the Commonwealth Games gold with a series of records. A back injury then kept her out for most of a year.
Tokyo
In April 2021 she set a world record in the clean and jerk, 119 kilograms, at the Asian Championships. On 24 July 2021, the first day of competition at the Tokyo Olympics, she lifted 87 kilograms in the snatch and 115 in the clean and jerk for a total of 202 and the silver medal, behind Hou Zhihui of China. It was India’s first medal of the Games and its first in weightlifting since 2000.
After Tokyo
- silver at the World Championships of 2022, lifting with an injured wrist
- gold at the Commonwealth Games of 2022 in Birmingham
- a hip injury at the Asian Games held in 2023, where she finished fourth
- fourth place at the Paris Olympics in 2024, one kilogram short of a medal
Return
After a year away she came back in 2025 in the new 48-kilogram class, winning the Commonwealth Championships and then silver at the World Championships. In 2026 she won gold at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, her third in succession, and silver at the Asian Games in Japan in the 49-kilogram class, the first Asian Games medal of her career and India’s first in weightlifting at those Games for twenty-eight years.
Method
She is a little under five feet tall. Her strength lies in the clean and jerk; the snatch has always been the weaker lift, and the difference between her and the Chinese lifters. She has trained for most of her career under the national coach Vijay Sharma, and for periods in the United States with a specialist in strength and rehabilitation.
Honours
- Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (2018)
- Padma Shri (2018)
- Appointed an additional superintendent of police by the Government of Manipur
Personal Life
She is known for the gold earrings in the shape of the Olympic rings that her mother gave her before Rio. She remains closely attached to her village, where she has built a house for her parents.
She follows Mary Kom as the best-known sportswoman of Manipur.
Featured image: Mirabai Chanu with a gold medal. Photo by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, licensed under Government Open Data License – India, via Wikimedia Commons.
