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Silver to gold, Glasgow to Glasgow: Mirabai Chanu's CWG hat-trick sets the stage for unfinished business
From Glasgow silver in 2014 to a historic gold hat-trick in 2026, Mirabai Chanu's CWG journey is complete, but her biggest mission still awaits.
Mirabai Chanu's Commonwealth Games story came full circle on Sunday in the same city where it began. Only this time, there was no one left to catch her.
Twelve years ago, a 19-year-old Mirabai arrived in Glasgow fresh off winning gold at the 2013 Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships, where she lifted a combined 166kg in the 48kg category. At the 2014 Commonwealth Games, she improved that total to 170kg but lost gold by the narrowest of margins.
It became an all-Manipur duel. Sanjita Chanu led after the snatch, and the pair traded the lead through the clean and jerk before Sanjita's final lift secured a winning total of 173kg. Mirabai attempted 98kg with her final lift to tie the score but fell agonisingly short. She walked away with silver, just three kilos behind.
Twelve years later, in the same city, there was no such suspense.
Mirabai captured a historic third consecutive Commonwealth Games gold, becoming the first Indian woman weightlifter to achieve the feat. Along the way, the 31-year-old rewrote the record books, breaking the Commonwealth and Commonwealth Games snatch records before setting new CWG marks in clean and jerk and overall total with 190kg (85kg snatch, 105kg clean and jerk).
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It was less a contest than a demonstration of just how far she had moved ahead of the rest of the field.
The pattern was familiar. At the 2018 Gold Coast Games, Mirabai shattered Commonwealth Games records with a 196kg total (86kg snatch, 110kg clean and jerk), finishing a staggering 30kg ahead of the silver medallist.
Four years later in Birmingham, she went even better, lifting 201kg (88kg snatch, 113kg clean and jerk) to retain her title by another massive margin. And in Glasgow, she completed the hat-trick.
Yet despite the dominance, there was a sense inside the Indian camp that this was merely another stop on a much bigger journey.
Long before the Games began, Mirabai had made it clear that Glasgow was not her primary target. She had already ruled out attempting the coveted 90kg snatch, choosing instead to preserve herself for the Asian Games later this year, where she hopes to complete the only missing chapter in her decorated career.
To understand that decision, one must look at everything that happened between the two Glasgow Games.
Mirabai became world champion in 2017, ending India's two-decade wait for a world title in weightlifting. She followed it with Commonwealth gold in Gold Coast before a back injury ruled her out of the 2018 Asian Games. She returned to win India's first Olympic weightlifting medal in two decades with silver at Tokyo, added another Commonwealth gold in Birmingham, only for a hip injury to derail her campaign at the rescheduled Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023, where she finished fourth. Another fourth-place finish followed at the Paris Olympics before she bounced back with Commonwealth Championships gold and World Championships silver in 2025. Through an Olympic silver, a world title and now three straight Commonwealth golds, one medal has stubbornly eluded her. An Asian Games podium. She finished ninth on debut in 2014, withdrew injured in 2018 and missed bronze by the narrowest of margins in 2023.
That explains why Sunday's gold came with relatively little emotional weight.
"I will not give my full effort in the Commonwealth Games. My focus is the Asian Games, which are very near. I am training according to that. So my performance and effort here will depend on that plan," Mirabai had told PTI last Thursday.
Even after missing her opening attempts in both the snatch and clean and jerk on Sunday, that mindset did not change.
"We were not going to put in so much effort in these Games, but my first attempt failed because of my own mistake. We also had to see what was going on in training and what more improvements were needed. Bringing my body weight down to 48kg itself has been very difficult," she said after winning gold.
She also confirmed that the elusive 90kg snatch would have to wait. "I will try to get 90kg at the Asian Games for sure."
There is another reason why Nagoya matters.
The International Weightlifting Federation has scrapped the 48kg/49kg divisions from the Olympic programme for Los Angeles 2028. The weight category that shaped Mirabai's career, from Glasgow 2014 to Glasgow 2026, will no longer exist. Which is why the real ending to this story isn't Glasgow. It is Nagoya. Because for a champion who has won almost everything the sport has to offer, there remains just one unfinished chapter. And that is the one she now wants most.
