The athletes we didn’t know about

When the 27-year-old ChanuSaikhomMirabai won a silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Women's 49 kg category in weightlifting, this sent the nation into frenzy. With her winning, it brought to attention the world of weightlifting in India is even more into the limelight. However, Mirabai isn’t the only one or, the first Indian making the nation proud with their exceptional sporting talent. Here are a few other weightlifters from India we should know about.

KarnamMalleswari FromAndhra Pradesh, Malleswari started her athletic journey in 1993 Melbourne, where she won a bronze medal in the World championship. The next year she won a gold medal in the World Championship in Istanbul and went on to win four more medals - comprising two gold and two bronze -in the world championship. Eventually creating history at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and winning a bronze medal by lifting a total of 240kg.

Kunjarani Devi FromManipur, Kunjarani Devi was counted amongst the best Weightlifters of her time. The Indian lifter won seven silver medals in the World championship and two bronze medals in the Asian games, respectively, in the 44kg and 46kg categories. But after switching from powerlifting to weightlifting in 1985, she won a gold medal the same year.

SathishSivalingam This Tamil Nadu weightlifter rose to fame after he won gold medals in the men's 77 kg weight class at both the 2014 – lifting 149 kg snatch and 179 kg clean and jerk lift, making a total of 328 kg. In fact, his lift of 149 kg in the snatch set a new games record- and the 2018 – lifting 144 kg in snatch games record and 173 kg in clean and jerk- Commonwealth Games.

Vikas Thakur The Punjabi lifter won silver in the men's 85 kg weight class at the 2014 Commonwealth Games at Glasgow, Scotland. Thakur went on to win a bronze in the 94 kg weight class at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in The Gold Coast. In fact, a year before the 2018 Commonwealth Games he held the world record in clean and jerk lifts at 196kg in the World Championships.

KhumukchamSanjitaChanu Also from Manipur, Chanu was the only female weightlifter from India to win a gold medal in the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Her total lift of 173kg is only 2kg shy of AugustinaNwaokolo’s existing Commonwealth Games record. She then won gold again at the 2018 games at Gold Coast.

A few other lifters are SantoshiMatsa, Swati Singh, Gurdeep Singh and Pardeep Singh among others.