With eye on Oly, Chanu looking to lift 210 kg at Asian C'ships

In her bid to secure a podium finish at the Tokyo Olympics, former world champion Mirabai Chanu said that she wants to lift 210 kg at the Asian Championships in April. Chanu on Tuesday bettered her own national record by two kilograms enroute to winning the ongoing senior National Weightlifting Championships here.

"I want to lift 210 kg at the Asian Championship. That is the last final Olympic qualification meet and it is important to give our best there," Chanu told reporters here.

"In snatch, my target is 90 above. My target in clean and jerk in 120. Now in April, I have the Asian Championships to qualify for the Olympics, there I will look to cover," she said.

Chanu lifted a total of 203 kg to win the 49 kg gold here. The 25-year-old Manipuri lifted 88 kg in snatch in her second attempt and 115 kg in clean and jerk. The effort put her in fourth place in world rankings behind Chinese Jiang Huihua (212 kg) and Hou Zhihui (211 kg) and Korean Ri Song Gum (209 kg).

Chanu lifted 86 kg in snatch and 113 kg in clean and jerk for a total of 199 kg at the Asian Championships in April last year to miss the bronze medal by a whisker.

The 2017 World Championship gold medallist also bagged the 48 kg gold at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and is one of India's leading medal hopes going into the Tokyo Olympics.

Along with the Chinese pair of Zhihui Hou and Huihua Jiang, a total of 13 lifters are set to make the cut for Tokyo in every category. The Asian meet (April 16-25) will be the final Olympic qualification meet.

"Everything is going according to our plan. Everyday we are getting in there. We have two weeks left for the Asian Championship, our target is to achieve 206-207 kg there," Chanu's coach Vijay Sharma said.

"It's all about making some technical adjustments and power-strengthening now.

"We missed two lifts even if she had cleared one lift we could have achieved the target here. Our target here is between 203 and 205. In competition, you always make some minor changes in lifts," he added.

Chanu said her performances have improved a lot under coach Sharma.

"They support us a lot. I have been training with Vijay (Sharma) since 2014 and my performance has improved under him."

Chanu said her failure at the 2016 Rio Olympics taught her a lot.

"I tried hard but I was not lucky. I would try to recover from that failure in 2020. I learnt from there how to train and take care of my health."

On the pressure of expectation from her at the Tokyo Games, Chanu said: "Pressure is there that India is expecting a medal. But I am happy that I have the chance to do something for the country so I will put my best foot forward."

Diet is very important for a weightlifter and Chanu, who trains at Patiala along with others, said she mainly has boiled food and red meat. "My favourite food is Iromba (a Manipur dish). But diet is very important for us and I eat boiled food. Red meat I also eat. I stay away from oil."

Asked about her back injury, she said she is fine now and has recovered completely.

( With inputs from IANS )