Indian weightlifter Mirabai Chanu finally secured the Asian Games medal that had eluded her for years, winning silver in the women’s 49kg category at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games in Japan on Wednesday.
The Tokyo Olympic silver medallist finished with a combined lift of 198kg, registering 87kg in the snatch and 111kg in the clean and jerk. Her performance was enough to secure second place and complete a major gap in her medal collection.
North Korea’s Ri Song Gum won the gold with a record-breaking total of 215kg, while Indonesia’s Luluk Diana Tri Wijayana claimed bronze with 191kg. Ri lifted 94kg in the snatch and 121kg in the clean and jerk, setting world records during her winning performance.
For Chanu, the medal marked the culmination of several Asian Games attempts. She finished ninth at her debut in Incheon in 2014, missed the 2018 Jakarta Games because of injury and narrowly missed the podium at the Hangzhou Games in 2023, where she finished fourth after an injury affected her clean and jerk attempts.
Chanu began her campaign in Nagoya with three successful snatch attempts, eventually lifting 87kg. She then produced a best clean and jerk of 111kg, which secured her position on the podium.
The silver also ended a long wait for India in Asian Games weightlifting. Chanu became India’s first weightlifting medallist at the Asian Games since Karnam Malleswari’s silver in 1998, bringing the country’s wait for a medal in the sport to an end.
Already an Olympic medallist and a world and Commonwealth champion, Chanu can now add an Asian Games medal to her list of major international achievements. After years of near-misses and injury setbacks, the 2026 Games finally delivered the continental medal that had been missing from her career.
