Weightlifter Mirabai Chanu reveals Rio Olympics failure forced her to think of quitting
Weightlifter Saikhom Mirabai Chanu has revealed that a bad performance in the Rio Olympics last year forced her to think about leaving the game altogether. Recently, Chanu won a gold medal at the World Weightlifting Championship after a brilliant performance in the final and buried the Rio demon.
Chanu lifted 85kg in snatch and 109kg in clean and jerk to total an impressive 194kg in the women’s 48kg category at the World Weightlifting Championship in Anaheim, USA. With the medal, she was also able to bury the demons of the forgettable outing at the Rio Olympics to become the first Indian in over two decades to win a gold medal. And now she stated that her failure forced her to think about quitting the game because of the criticism which she faced after coming back.
“I was really low after the Olympics. It took me a lot of time to get over the disappointment. I even thought of giving up the sport and stop training. The comments in social media, the criticism against my coach really hurt me,” said Chanu as quoted by PTI.
“I was thinking day and night how to get things right. I decided to do better because I knew that was the only way to stop people from talking. That was the only way to get over the hurt.”
After Karnam Malleshwari, who won 2000 Olympic bronze medal for India, the 23-year-old managed to win the gold at the World Weightlifting Championship. The Indian player claimed that she not only worked hard on her techniques but also took regular sessions with a psychologist.
“At the Olympics, I failed in clean-and-jerk, so I discussed with my coach and brought in a few changes in my technique,” she said.
“My psychologist also played a big role. I used to go to my psychologist twice a month but after the Olympics, I started taking sessions every week.”
There was enough news when players embarrassed the country due to dope scandals. Chanu talked about how the dope tests were done by the organizations.
“Every week, I am tested for doping by NADA and WADA takes my samples twice a month. After reaching Las Vegas, my blood and urine samples were taken and again it was collected during the championship, so it was collected twice in a month,” the 23-year-old said.
After coming back from Rio, she didn’t go home and went to the National camp in Patiala to work on her clean-and-jerk. After playing for Railways event in this month, she will participate in National Championship.
“I will take part in the Railways event from December 11 and then there is the National Championship in January. After that, I will speak to the coach and hope to go home,” she said.