Mumbai: As the barbell bounced in front of her after the lift that guaranteed an Asian Games medal, a slight smile lit up Mirabai Chanu’s face. As the world seemingly stood still around her after the shot that slipped up another Asian Games medal, a wry smile slid behind Manu Bhaker’s face.
Some 70 kilometers apart at Aichi-Nagoya on Wednesday, between these two spectrums of emotion lay a common thread: an athlete’s unrelenting quest to fill in the blanks of an otherwise bold and beautiful CV.
These two, mind you, are among the finest in India’s sporting history, with Olympic, World Championships, Asian Championships and Commonwealth Games medals to flaunt. One continued her hunt at these Asian Games — an individual medal for the decorated shooter. One found her treasure at these Asian Games — the only missing piece of metal for the steely weightlifter.
Mirabai, 32, endured more than a decade of disappointments, heartbreaks and wounds of the body and mind, until finally getting there. The world and Olympic stages conquered, she kept at her pursuit of an Asian high, stumbling, falling, pausing, but, never stopping. Mirabai wanted it that bad. India wanted it that bad for Mirabai.
And yet, would Mirabai have been any less of a champion of Indian sport and an inspiration in Indian weightlifting without an Asian Games medal? Would Roger Federer have been any less of a master on court without a French Open crown? Would Novak Djokovic have been any less of a beast among all Grand Slam beasts without an Olympic stamp? Would Lionel Messi have been any less of a magician of the ball and feet without a World Cup wand? Would Sachin Tendulkar have been any less of a generation-defining and record-gobbling cricketer without a 100th hundred? Would Neeraj Chopra have been any less of a gold standard in Indian athletics without the 90-metre mark?
Maybe not, or maybe.
And yet, what separates these great of the world and of this country from the good is that they just wouldn’t let go. Not after grabbing everything else that was up on offer. Not after self-doubts that are bound to creep in. Not after the outside noise that can get all too negative.
Once they did cross over all those botched attempts and bottled feelings to get there, the release was liberating. Even more than all the legacy-setting achievements before that.
Federer cried tears of ecstasy and ease holding aloft the Coupe des Mousquetaires. Even though the Swiss maestro had made a habit of it everywhere else by then, except the one place that would complete his career Grand Slam.
Sometimes a stroke of fortune can reward the unrelenting fighters. Mirabai didn’t have to worry about the Chinese heavyweights in her category at the 2026 Asian Games. Federer didn’t have to worry about his clay nemesis (Rafael Nadal was knocked out early) at the 2009 French Open. And so, after 13 Grand Slams, came the 14th and most significant.
“I can now go the rest of my career without worrying that I would never win the French Open,” Federer said then.
Djokovic had won the French, Australian, US and Wimbledon. A record 24 times at that. Something else, however, was the “greatest achievement” for the Serb: winning the gold at the Paris Olympics. He sacrificed a rare Calendar Slam bid for it in 2021, and pushed “more than ever before” in 2024.
“The moment of when I achieved it, how I achieved it, after years of trying… I think (that) makes it even more unique,” Djokovic had said.
Messi too tried for years, criss-crossing through every individual achievement at the club level, playing more matches for his country than anybody else, returning with near-misses, announcing retirements and backpedaling those plans. Until it all came together at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
For a man revered around the globe, that one trophy, almost strangely, felt like a validation from his own people.
“I feel it like a triumph for me to have changed that situation and won over all the people of Argentina,” Messi said in an ESPN documentary.
Tendulkar did not need any winning over anymore. He had done above and beyond for the country in his sport. Still, the cricketer who carried Indian cricket on his shoulders for years felt the weight of a personal milestone that was taking longer than expected. To the extent that once he reached his 100th hundred, in 2012, he admitted feeling relieved.
“It was possibly the toughest phase of my life,” Tendulkar told the media. “There was so much hype and attention about the 100th hundred.”
As much as there were questions around Chopra and the “90m mark”. Never mind that the trendsetter of javelin had taken Indian athletics to hitherto unknown Olympic podiums. And so, once that 90m throw was eventually done, Chopra was happy that that “one question” was dusted.
Mirabai, too, has answered an Asian Games question. Not that she needed to but her smile on the podim showed that she perhaps wanted to.