Being the weightlifter that she is, Saikhom Mirabai Chanu had to lift herself up mentally a few months ago when the restrictions of the nationwide lockdown had robbed the usual routine of her life.

But that’s past now as the 26-year-old from Nongpok Kakching village in Manipur will leave for the US on Wednesday for a training programme.

As part of Mission Olympic Cell — the Sports Authority of India’s initiative to support podium prospects — Rs 40 lakh has been awarded to the 2017 World Championships gold medal-winning weightlifter. That will help facilitate a training programme for her in Kansas.

“I leave for the US on Wednesday on a training-cum-rehabilitation trip which is likely to last two months,” Mirabai told The Telegraph.

“Apart from training there, I also look forward to healing my long-standing back injury,” she added.

Recounting the hardships of the coronavirus-forced lockdown days, Mirabai said: “For two months I was completely locked inside my room at NIS Patiala. Then we requested the sports ministry and (sports minister Kiren) Rijiju Sir to allow us to resume training. The permission came through towards the end of May.

“So yes, we have been training… but no lifting as of now. We are doing conditioning, working on our techniques, working out at the gym.

“It was bad to be stuck inside the room. Mentally, the lockdown was talking a toll on us all.

“It was then that I realised that the most important thing is to keep myself strong, mentally. I started working out inside my room, in whatever ways I could.”

The lifter, who has been present on the international stage ever since winning the silver at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, is currently ranked fourth in the 49kg category on the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Tokyo 2020 ranking lists and thus has, according to the Weightlifting Federation of India (WFI), already made the cut for the Olympics.

But what drew her to weightlifting in the first place? “Not first… but second, you can say,” she laughs.

“Initially I had thought of taking up archery.

“But then, when I was in Class VIII, we had a piece on Kunjarani Devi as our text. That story, you can say, changed my life. I desperately wanted to be a weightlifter,” said Mirabai, the youngest of six siblings. “Thankfully, my mother supported my decision. And here I am,” added the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna awardee.

“The world is changing,” she continued, “Not only are more girls taking to sports, they are fetching India a lot of laurels. Sport, as we know, teaches discipline like nothing else.

“And I want to see nothing more than the flag of my country flying higher and higher.”