India
oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P
New Delhi, July 26: Sports Minister Anurag Thakur on Monday hailed weightlifter Mirabai Chanu for creating history by winning a first day medal at the Tokyo Olympics, an unparalleled feat by an Indian athlete in the history of the games.
“First day, first medal, nobody did it. You brought smiles in the faces of 135 crore Indians and the entire nation is proud of you,” Thakur said during a felicitation ceremony of the diminutive weightlifter and her coach Vijay Sharma at his residence here.
Chanu, who returned to the country on Monday evening, lifted a total of 202kg (87kg+115kg) in the 49kg category to better Karnam Malleswari’s bronze in the 2000 Sydney Olympics on Saturday.
With that performance, she exorcised the ghosts of the 2016 Games where she had failed to log a single…