Celebrating Her Win With Truckers Who Helped Her For Travel

 

Celebrations With All Respect

Mirabai Chanu visited and treated 150 truckers in Manipur since they had driven her from her village to Imphal every day for years for her training.

Mirabai Chanu, who earned India's first Olympic medal in the current Tokyo Olympics, had a difficult childhood. Nongpok Kakching, her hamlet, was more than 25 kilometres from the Sports Academy in Manipur's capital, Imphal. Because she didn't have the money to go the journey every day, the top weightlifter would hitch a ride on trucks carrying river sands to Imphal. For several years, truckers in her hamlet offered her a ride every day. She expressed her thanks by giving about 150 truck drivers and assistants a shirt, a Manipuri scarf, and a full course meal on Thursday.

When Mirabai greeted the drivers, she came down in tears of gratitude. Her goal of becoming a weightlifter, she claimed, would not have come true if it hadn't been for the truckers who assisted her in getting to the academy.

In the women's 49kg division, the 26-year-old lifted a total of 202kg (87kg+115kg) to beat Karnam Malleswari's bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Olympics. It was also India's first weightlifting Olympic medal since the Sydney Games.

Mirabai Chanu has spoken about the challenges she faced and the sacrifices she made along the way. She told NDTV in an exclusive interview after earning a silver medal in Tokyo, "I have made many sacrifices to get here."

"You have to make sacrifices to be a great player or achieve anything huge," she had remarked, "and I have made many sacrifices."

Mirabai Chanu said that she had gone two days without eating before competing in the Games. Chanu told NDTV after arriving in Delhi from Tokyo, "I didn't eat anything for two days before the tournament because I was worried about my weight."

"It's really difficult (to maintain weight). To stay in this group, we must adhere to a rigorous dietary regimen."