Tokyo Olympics: Weightlifting: India's first medal in Tokyo as Mirabai Chanu clinches silver

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Bengaluru, July 24: It was a historic moment for India, as star weightlifter Mirabai Chanu became the first Indian weightlifer to win silver medal in the women's 49 kg event.

Chanu won India's first medal at the Tokyo Olympics with her historic performance. Her best in Snatch is 87kg and in Clean & Jerk 115 kg. After lifting 115 kg in her second clean and jerk attempt, Chanu went for 117 kg but failed.

Chanu lifted 84kg and 87kg successfully but attempting to lift 89kgs Chanu failed and was placed in the second spot after China's Hous Zhihu lifted 94kg to create an Olympic record.

In 87kg, Chanu equalled her personal best. In the previous Rio Games, Chanu had suffered a poor outing. The Indian weightlifter has bounced back and given the country its first medal at the Tokyo Games.

With her historic triumph, she ensured that India was second on the medals tally for now, a feat that has never been achieved before by the country. The diminutive iron lady from Manipur lifted a total of 202kg (87kg+115kg) to better Karnam Malleswari's bronze in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

With this, she exorcised the ghosts of the 2016 Games where she had failed to log a single legitimate lift, leaving her shattered.

Her smile shone the brightest during the entire performance on Saturday but also hard to miss were the Olympic rings' shaped earrings that she was sporting, which were a gift from her mother.

The gold went to China's Hou Zhihui with an effort of 210kg (94kg+116kg), who created Olympic records in all three categories (snatch, clean and jerk and Total). Aisah Windy Cantika of Indonesia took home the bronze with an effort of 194kg (84kg+110kg).

The diminutive Mannipuri broke down after realising that she has secured a medal and hugged head coach Vijay Sharma in jubiliation. She later broke into a punjabi bhangra too to celebrate the historic podium finish.

(With inputs from PTI)