“Lack of competition at the Commonwealth Games does make it a little boring,” says CWG champion Mirabai Chanu

The Commonwealth Games are going on and once again India’s one of the most consistent athletes, Mirabai Chanu has delivered with a gold medal. The Olympic silver medallist in Tokyo completely dominated her weight category as she won the gold medal by a huge margin. The ace weight lifter handed India’s first gold medal and truly kickstarted the campaign for India in Birmingham.

In her second attempt in snatch she bettered her personal best and also broke the Commonwealth Games record. However she failed to lift on her third attempt in snatch.But had a 12 kg lead over her closest rival heading into clean and jerk.

Sharing her thoughts in an interview with Times of India, Chanu revealed how things are pretty easy for her at the Commonwealth Games due to lack of competition and it does get a little boring for her. But she wanted to compete with herself and do better than what she did previously. “I knew beforehand that it’s going to be easy at the Commonwealth Games. But I came here with a plan, that in this competition I have to work on myself so that I can plan better for future events what needs to improve. But yes, with no top opponents and lack of fight (competition), it does get a bit boring,” the CWG champion said to TOI.

With the Asian Games and the World Championships coming up, Chanu focused on doing her best and similar things were said by her coach Vijay Sharma. She tried pushing the boundaries and apart from that last snatch attempt she was very successful in everything that she tried. “This competition was about myself. Sir (coach Vijay Sharma) also kept telling me that this competition is about you, about the work you have done… It felt good as well. Mind got relaxed, that whatever I have worked on, to improve going ahead. That’s the feeling performed my lifts with,” she added.

India have now won nine medals at the end of Day 4 in Birmingham with Harjinder Kaur adding bronze from Weightlifting whereas Sushila Devi and Vijay Kumar win silver and bronze respectively from Judo.