Paris heartache over, Chanu focuses on regaining fitness

Having overcome the agony of a 4th-place finish at Paris Games, the lifter has resumed training in Modinagar under national coach Vijay Sharma

- Shantanu Srivastava

NEW DELHI: One of Mirabai Chanu's most heartening traits is her ability to smile in the face of adversity. Be it the Tokyo high or the Paris heartbreak, Chanu's ear-to-ear grin has remained a constant, and it did make a generous appearance when one asked her to reflect on her performance at this year's Olympics.

"Recalling disappointments is never easy, but I will give it a shot," she began, her smile intact. "There's no point in brooding over what's done. It is important for athletes to dust themselves up after a failure and start over."

A fourth-place finish is often more than a failure though. It's sport's most agonising result, more so when one misses it by a whisker. Chanu, a silver medalist at Tokyo Olympics, entered Paris as one of India's brightest medal hopes, but warding off the challenge from China's defending champion Hou Zhihui and Thailand's 2021 world champion Surodchana Khambao was always going to be a tall order.