Nameirakpam Kunjarani Devi was the first great name of Indian weightlifting. Between 1989 and 1997 she won seven silver medals at the World Championships, a run no Indian lifter had come close to before, and she was still good enough in her late thirties to win Commonwealth Games gold in Manchester and Melbourne. She finished fourth at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and later became a senior officer and coach.
Name: Nameirakpam Kunjarani Devi | Born: 1 March 1968, Imphal, Manipur | Sport: Weightlifting | Event: 44 kg, 46 kg and 48 kg
A start in Imphal
Kunjarani grew up in Imphal. As a 14-year-old she watched P. T. Usha at the 1982 Asian Games and decided she wanted a life in sport. She tried hockey, football and running before she found powerlifting, which suited her small frame, and she broke the national record within months of starting.
The switch to weightlifting came after the first National Games in 1985, which included the sport. She won three golds there. From the mid-1980s she won national titles in the 44 kg, 46 kg and 48 kg classes, and in 1987 she set two national records at a meet in Trivandrum.
The first World Championships medal
Manchester in 1989 gave Indian weightlifting its first podium at a World Championships. Kunjarani lifted 57.5 kg in the snatch and 75 kg in the clean and jerk for a total of 132.5 kg in the 44 kg class and took silver. She received the Arjuna Award in 1990.
That medal was the first of seven world silvers. She was second in the 44 kg class at Donaueschingen in 1991 and Varna in 1992, missed the 1993 Championships in Melbourne through injury, and then won silver in the 46 kg class at Istanbul in 1994, Warsaw in 1995, Guangzhou in 1996 and Chiang Mai in 1997.
Asian Games and Asian Championships
The same pattern held at continental level. She won bronze at the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing in the 44 kg class and bronze again at Hiroshima in 1994 in the 46 kg class, losing out to Chinese lifters on both occasions. At the Asian Championships she collected medals in almost every edition from 1989 to 1996, including two golds and a bronze in the 46 kg class in South Korea in 1995.
For that body of work she shared the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna for 1996-97 with tennis player Leander Paes. She also received the K. K. Birla Sports Award for the same year.
A second career at 48 kg
After 1997 the world medals stopped, but Kunjarani kept lifting. She moved up to 48 kg and finished fifth at the World Championships in Piraeus in 1999 and fifth again in Vancouver in 2003. At the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 she won the 48 kg title, with golds in the snatch, the clean and jerk and the overall total.
Athens and Melbourne
Her one Olympic appearance came at Athens in 2004, when she was 36. She lifted a total of 190 kg in the 48 kg class and finished fourth, ten kilos behind the bronze medallist Aree Wiratthaworn of Thailand.
Two years later, at 38, she defended her Commonwealth title in Melbourne. She lifted 72 kg in the snatch and 94 kg in the clean and jerk for a Games record total of 166 kg. She also lifted at the 2005 World Championships in Doha, finishing seventh.
Uniform, coaching and honours
Kunjarani served with the Central Reserve Police Force, where she rose to the rank of commandant and was in charge of its sports team. She captained the Indian Police team from 1996 to 1998. In 2011 she received the Padma Shri. She was the coach of the Indian women’s weightlifting team at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and sat on the selection committee for the Khel Ratna and Arjuna awards that year.
Her career ran for 17 years from her first international medal to her last. Manipur has since produced Mary Kom and Mirabai Chanu, and both came through a state where Kunjarani had already shown what a small athlete from Imphal could do against the world.
Career record and honours
- World Championships: silver 1989, 1991 and 1992 (44 kg); silver 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997 (46 kg)
- Olympic Games: fourth, Athens 2004 (48 kg)
- Asian Games: bronze 1990 (44 kg) and 1994 (46 kg)
- Asian Championships: medals at six editions between 1989 and 1996, including two golds in 1995
- Commonwealth Games: gold 2002 and 2006 (48 kg), Games record total of 166 kg in 2006
- Arjuna Award (1990)
- Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (1996-97, shared with Leander Paes)
- K. K. Birla Sports Award (1996-97)
- Padma Shri (2011)