This story runs 14 years to the past when Mirabai Chanu is a 12-year-old child and lives in a small village city of Nongpok Kakching, about 20 kilometers from Imphal City in Manipur.
The Mirabai family area lives in being surrounded by Hillocks.
Born in a poor family, Mirabai is the youngest of six siblings.
His father Saikhom Kriti Meitei was used to work as a construction worker in the State Public Works Department in Imphal, while his mother Saikhom Tombi Devi run a small snack shop in the village.
His father’s salary is enough about hand-to-mouth.
He often uses his brothers to the nearest forest to collect firewood used by family as fuel.
On one trip like that, Mirabai went with his brother Saikhom Sanatomba Meitei, who was 16 years old at the time, to the hill to collect firewood.
The duo’s sister collected a bunch of firewood, and the Sanatomba tried to lift a group on her head.
But he can’t.
“For my surprise, Mira easily lifted the firewood bundle on her head.
He then walked back to our house which was about two kilometers with a stack.
He was around 12 years old,” Satatomba said.
Not only this, when he was around 5-6 years old, Mirabai was used to carry a bucket full of water on his head back to his house, negotiating a steep slope in the hilly area.
“There is a lot of financial crises and my parents can hardly support it.
Whatever he has done, itself,” said Satatomba.
When he was 12 years old, Mirabai then visited the Sports Authority in India (SAI) at Imphal at the Lampak Khuman Stadium.
He went looking for archery training but could not find every day.
Incidentally, he then saw several other women’s weightlifting clips of Manipur Kunjarani Devi, who was a seven-time silver medalist at the World Championship, won gold in Melbourne Games 2006 and was inspired by him.
Mirabai knows where his future is lying down.
The loss of weight lifting infrastructure in his village, Mirabai finally found himself under the supervision of coach Anita Chanu.
He will go around 40 km on a hilly land every day for his training.
“Mirabai came to the training academy in 2006.
I was involved with the talent identification program.
We run specific physical tests such as running, jumping, squatting, exploding.
He did well in all tests,” Anita Chanu, who competed in the Asian Match Beijing 1990, said.
“The biggest problem for us sends him alone to Imphal for training.
We have to prostrate before Mira’s insistence.
We tried to explain to him that it would be difficult on his side to practice at Imphal, but he was ready to cover 40 km a day every day.
Sometimes, he will Ride on a truck or if he was lucky to share tuk-tuk, a few days he would cycle, and a few days he would come halfway and then walked back home.
He never threw a towel, “said Mrs.
Tombi Devi.
In the middle, Mirabai first used Bamboo Trunks as a barbell to hone his technique and after six months turned to conventional tools.
Two years later, he made it to the National Camp.
Mirabai who was tenacious then won the title at the state level in the sub-junior category and then won his first national medal in the Junior category in 2011.
Immediately after, he got the call of his national team and finally under the guidance.
Idol Kunjarani Devi.
Then came the first sense of the international stage in the 2014 Commonwealth game, where he won silver and announced himself to the world.
From bringing firewood to silver Olympics, the story of the courage of Chanu
