Commonwealth Games 2026: All you need to know about Martina Devi Maibam

Manipur's weightlifting production line has given India champions for four decades, and the latest name on the list is Martina Devi Maibam.

Competing in the women's +86kg category, she is one of the fastest-rising heavyweights in Indian weightlifting, having gone from a junior standout to a senior national record-holder in barely two years.

Selected in India's Commonwealth Games 2026 squad alongside Olympic medallist Mirabai Chanu, Martina heads into Glasgow as one of the contingent's most closely watched newcomers.

Early days

Martina Devi Maibam hails from Manipur, the north-eastern state that has produced some of India's greatest weightlifters, from Kunjarani Devi to Mirabai Chanu to Bindyarani Devi.

She came through the state's well-established junior weightlifting pipeline, training at the Sports Authority of India's National Centres of Excellence, which run programmes out of Imphal, Patiala and Aurangabad under the Khelo India scheme.

Like most young lifters to emerge from Manipur, Martina built her base on the domestic junior and youth circuit, competing in the +87kg category and steadily climbing state and national rankings before she had even turned 18.

Rising through the ranks

Martina's rise accelerated through 2024. At the Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championships in Doha that December, she won two silver medals and a bronze in the junior +87kg category, lifting a total of 225kg.

Just months earlier, in September 2024, an 18-year-old Martina had already announced herself on the global stage at the IWF Junior World Weightlifting Championships in Leon, Spain.

Competing in the women's +87kg division, she lifted a total of 237kg (101kg snatch, 136kg clean and jerk) to finish sixth. Her clean and jerk of 136kg and her total of 237kg both broke senior national records, and her snatch of 101kg fell just short of the senior mark, all from a teenager competing against lifters up to three years older than her.

She followed that up with a place in Manipur's squad for the National Games 2025 in Uttarakhand, further building the competition experience that would define her breakthrough season.

A historic national record sweep

Martina's biggest statement came in February 2026, when she delivered a clean sweep of national records at the IWLF National Youth, Junior and Senior Weightlifting Championships in Modinagar, Uttar Pradesh, taking every mark on offer in her category across snatch, clean and jerk and total.

The performance confirmed what her 2024 numbers had suggested, that Martina was no longer just a junior prospect, but a senior-level force in Indian weightlifting's heaviest women's category.

That form carried into 2026, a season that also saw her compete at the Asian Senior Weightlifting Championships in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, sharpening her against the continent's best ahead of the year's biggest assignment.