Olympic medalist Mirabai Chanu met and felicitated 150 truckers in Manipur who help her during her training days.

Mirabai Chanu, who won India its first medal at the ongoing Tokyo Olympics, did not have it easy growing up. Her village, Nongpok Kakching, was more than 25 km from the Sports Academy in Manipur’s capital Imphal.

Lacking the funds to travel the distance every day, the star weightlifter used to hitch a ride with trucks that would carry river sands to Imphal. The truckers near her village gave her a lift every day for several years. On Thursday, she let her gratitude be known as she treated around 150 truck drivers and helpers to a shirt, a Manipuri scarf and a full course lunch.Mirabai broke down in gratitude when she met the drivers.She said that her dream of becoming a weightlifter would not have been achieved, had it not been for the truckers who helped her travel for training.

The 26-year-old lifted a total of 202kg (87kg+115kg) in the women’s 49kg category to better Karnam Malleswari’s bronze in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. It was also India’s first Olympic medal in weightlifting since the Sydney Games.