The Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWF) expects former world champion Mirabai Chanu to top the charts at the Asian Championships in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, in April.
“We expect her to top the rankings in Kazakhstan. And mark my words, if she manages to do that, there will be no stopping her in Tokyo, so much so that the Chinese might pull out fearing a loss,” IWF Secretary General Sahdev Yadav said on the sidelines of the 72nd men’s and 35th senior women’s national weightlifting championships at the Khudiram Anushilan Kendra here on Monday.
Chanu held on to her fourth spot in the Olympic qualifiers ranking list released by the International Weightlifting Federation. The 2017 World Championship gold-medallist, also bagged gold (48 kg) in the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and is one of India’s leading medal hopes going into Tokyo Olympics.
Chinese pair of Zhihui Hou and Huihua Jiang led the rankings with a total of 13 lifters set to make the cut for Tokyo in every category. The Kazakhstan event (April 16-25) will be the final Olympic qualification meet.
Yadav also said that Jeremy Lalrinnunga, who became the first Indian to bag a gold at the Youth Olympic Games, is tipped to qualify for the Olympics in men’s 67 kg category.
“Our target is to keep him ready for 2024 Olympics. We want to have three medal hopefuls in Los Angeles,” Yadav said.
The IWF has planned to send the Olympic-bound lifters 20 days ahead of the Games to acclimatise with the conditions.
“It will be very hot then. We don’t want to go too early, so we have planned to reach there 20 days in advance,” Yadav said.