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'Thought to quit after Rio loss,' says Weightlifting World Champion Mirabai Chanu

WION Web Team
New Delhi, Delhi, IndiaUpdated: Dec 08, 2017, 04:58 PM IST
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Mirabai clinched a gold medal at the World Weightlifting Championships last month. Photograph:(Zee News Network)

Failure is hard to digest. This is exactly what once happened to the newly crowned weightlifting world champion Saikhom Mirabai Chanu.

Mirabai, who brought laurels to the country by clinching a Gold medal at the World Weightlifting Championships last month, actually thought of quitting the sport after receiving flak for her failure to win a medal at the Rio Olympics.

"I was really low after the Olympics. It took me a lot of time to get over the disappointment. I even thought of giving up the sport and stop training. The comments in social media, the criticism against my coach really hurt me," said Chanu, as reported by PTI.

To overcome the failure at the Olympics, Chanu left no stone unturned and worked on her technique and even went for regular sessions to her psychologist.

"My psychologist also played a big role. I used to go to my psychologist twice in a month but after the Olympics, I started taking sessions every week and it really helped me," she added as per PTI.

In Rio 2016, Chanu had put up a disappointing performance as she could not get an overall total in women's 48 kg, after failing to lift the weight in any of her three attempts in clean and jerk section.

But now, after taking India to new heights, Chanu eyes the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games scheduled to take place next year.