Weightlifter Mirabai Chanu wins silver to complete her major medal collection

Indian weightlifter Mirabai Chanu secured a silver medal in the women's forty-nine kilogram category, completing her set of major tournament medals after years of narrow misses. At thirty-two years old, she lifted a combined total of one hundred ninety-eight kilograms, managing eighty-seven kilograms in the snatch event and one hundred eleven kilograms in the clean and jerk. This victory makes her India's first Asian Games weightlifting medallist since Karnam Malleswari won silver in Bangkok back in 1998. Gold went to North Korea's Ri Song-gum, who set a world-record total of two hundred fifteen kilograms, including a one hundred twenty-one kilogram clean and jerk. Chanu competed as the oldest of the seven lifters in her field. Her journey to the podium followed a fourth-place finish at the Paris Olympics, where she missed out on a bronze medal by just one kilogram. Working alongside her long-time coach Vijay Sharma in a Ghaziabad gym basement, she overcame years of injuries and setbacks to claim the one major prize that had eluded her throughout her career.