As a 14-year-old girl from a small town just starting her journey in weightlifting, Gyaneshwari Yadav remembers the first time she heard of Saikhom Mirabai Chanu.
It was back in 2018, when Mirabai won gold at the Weightlifting World Championships in Anaheim. Gyaneshwari had seen the news on her mobile phone.
“At that time I had just started my training but I didn’t really know what the future would be like. So when I saw the news on Mirabai didi, I showed it to my mother. I asked her ‘Do you know who this is?,” Gyaneshwari tells Sportstar.
Her mother didn’t know and that sent Gyaneshwari down a rabbit hole, a quest that turned her into something more than just a fan.
“I would watch her videos daily. I’d show them to my mother and father. I’d say look how she’s lifting! At that time I thought if another Indian girl can do this much, then why can’t I?” Gyaneshari recalls.
Eight years on, the now 23-year-old isn’t just a star-struck speck anymore for whom emulating Mirabai might have seemed like a faint dream. She’s well on her way to earning her own credentials.
On Monday, on her Commonwealth Games debut, Gyaneshwari won silver in the women’s 53kg category at Glasgow’s Armadillo Arena. She did all she could, equalling personal bests in the snatch (88kg) and setting new personal bests in the clean and jerk (111kg) and total (199kg)
It would take a Games record total of 206 from two-time African champion Onome Didih of Nigeria to deny her a gold.
Although Mirabai had herself won silver on Commonwealth debut back in 2014, it’s unlikely that would be much consolation to Gyaneshwari whose feat comes a day after her role model won a third-straight CWG title.
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Gyaneshwari is from the small town of Rajnandgaon in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, not one known for producing weightlifting talent.
“My district is very small. Many haven’t even heard of it. There’s no craze for weightlifting. Rajnandgaon isn’t special for anything actually,” she says.
Lifting heavy weights though was probably something she was destined to do. Her father, Deepak Yadav, was a bodybuilder who won the Mr. (then undivided) Madhya Pradesh state title in 1997 and competed nationally as well. Although he had to give up the sport after getting married, he always hoped to pass on his love for the iron to his children.
“After getting married, I couldn’t afford to be a bodybuilder. I had started working as an electrician. You can’t raise a family on that, while also competing. But I always hoped one of my children (Gyaneshwari and her younger brother) would follow the sport,” he says.
Gyaneshwari Yadav’s father, Deepak, was a bodybuilder but had to abandon his passion when familial commitments arose. He hoped one of his shoulder would find their way to the sport. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Her brother wasn’t keen but that wasn’t the case with Gyaneshwari. “When I was in Class 7, I saw some kids from a local gym putting on a weightlifting display at a festival. I thought it was very interesting. So, I asked my father if I could do it, too,” she says.
Deepak soon took his daughter to a neighbourhood gym to see if she had any potential in the sport. “I only gave her an unweighted bar at first just to see if she could handle it. I persisted after she told me she liked it after the first day,” he tells Sportstar. Deepak had intended to make her a powerlifter at first, and Gyaneshwari proved to be a natural. After starting out with just a rod, she slowly started putting weight on it.
A love for weightlifting passed on from father to daughter. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
“The coach there said I had a naturally good squat position. After one year, I was still very small. I was only around 37kg, but I had a squat of 65kg, a deadlift of 95kg, and a 40kg bench press. I even took part in a national level competition and won a gold medal in the sub-junior category,” she remembers.
It was after that medal in powerlifting that Gyaneshwari’s father took her to her first Olympic weightlifting session.
“That’s when I thought she needs more expert training. I took her to Jai Bhawani Vyayamshala in Rajnandgaon. It is the best Olympic weightlifting centre in our town. She’s been training there since,” he says.
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While finances have always been hard, with his income as an electrician barely sufficing, Deepak says he has done what he could.
“A bottle of good quality protein powder costs some 15,000 rupees. There are times when I’ve paid for it in instalments. But I didn’t ever think it was some burden. What else is the role of a father other than to give everything his children need. I always wanted to ensure Gyaneshwari lacked nothing,” he says.
Ragnandgaon lacked Olympic weightlifting role models but for Gyaneshwari, Mirabai has continued to be the north star.
Gyaneshwari’s father, Deepak Yadav, has been her support system as she found her feet in Olympic weightlifting. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
“After didi won the World title, I made a vow to myself. ‘Even I’m going to be like her.’ My mother encouraged me. She said, ‘Of course, you will be like her one day.’ But the truth is, at that time, I didn’t know how much work I had to put in,” she says.
“I got a bronze medal at the 2018 School Nationals, but after that I came fourth at both the Khelo India Games and also at the Youth Nationals. I was training well, but some kind of fear always crept in on the competition stage,” she says.
Her breakthrough moment would come at the 2020 Khelo India Games, when she won a silver (behind 2022 Youth World champion Harshada Garud). A year later, she finished with a silver medal in the 49kg category at the Youth Nationals. “That’s when I first got a chance to come to the national camp,” she says.
It was there that she met Mirabai for the first time. Gyaneshwari though will admit it was more of an awkward ambush.
“I was in my first national camp, but because I was a youth-level athlete and Mira didi was a senior, we trained separately. So, it wasn’t possible for me to speak to her. But I was excited just to see her. I was like, ‘Wow, there’s didi.’ Then one day, I was returning from lunch and saw that she was standing outside the hall. I got the courage and asked her for a photograph. She was very nice and obliged me,” Gyaneshwari recalls.
Gyaneshwari Yadav with her idol Saikhom Mirabai Chanu | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Training at the national camp and (later) National Center of Excellence in Lucknow and now in Patiala has helped Gyaneshwari improve steadily. While the technical inputs, better diet and recovery have helped, the opportunity to watch Mirabai has been an education.
“ Didi apna training kar ke hi motivate karti hai (Mirabai motivates us just by her training). When I would watch her, I would think how even I could improve. Last year didi moved to Modinagar (where she trains in a separate group) but I still try to follow what I learned when I did spend time with her,” Gyaneshwari told Sportstar before heading to the Commonwealth Games.
Gyaneshwari’s improvement has been steady. In 2022, she competed at her first World Youth Championships and won a silver medal with a total of 156kg (73kg+83kg). She then competed at the Khelo India Games in Panchkula, where she improved to 164kg (76kg + 88kg). As a senior, the results have continued to come through. That same year, she competed alongside her idol for the first time at the National Ranking series where she finished second having lifted the most ever by any India not named Mirabai.
At the 2024 World Championships, she took fifth place in the women’s 49kg category with a total of 182kg. This year though, she has been in the best shape of her career, twice lifting totals of 194kg, including at the Asian Championships where she took bronze in the women’s 53kg division.
On Monday, even though she didn’t win the gold she had hoped for, she improved on that total at the Commonwealth Games.
“I am improving every month, but have to get much better,” she declares.
She realises the herculean nature of her bid to follow in Mirabai’s footsteps. Chief national coach Vijay Sharma sees the spark but admits as much.
“She is very technically sound. That’s why her snatch is so high. She will continue to put weight on her clean and jerk as well. It’s when that happens that she will start becoming competitive at the world level,” he tells Sportstar.
There’s still some way to go for that to happen. But Gyaneshwari is nothing if not determined.
“I know there is a lot I have to do to be like Mirabai didi. I will have to work really hard to get that strong, but if I have to be like Mira didi, then that is what I have to do. But if she can do it, so can I,” she says.
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Published on Jul 27, 2026