Bogota (Colombia), Dec 7: Star Indian weightlifter Mirabai Chanu endured wrist pain to grab a silver medal at the World Championships and in the process beat Tokyo Olympics champion Hou Zhihua, here.
The Tokyo Olympic silver medallist, competing in the 49kg category, managed to lift 87kg in snatch and in 113kg in ‘clean and jerk’ for an overall effort of 200kg here on Tuesday night.
The Indian finished behind China’s Jiang Huihua, who won the gold with a total effort of 206kg (93kg+113kg) while her compatriot Zhihua took home the bronze medal with a total lift of 198kg (89kg+109kg).
It is Manipuri lifter’s second medal at the World Championships, having won a gold in 2017.
“It’s an emotionally proud moment for me to bring another world championship medal back home after five long years. The competition at the world championship is always intense with the best Olympian competing to at the highest level,” said Mirabai after winning the medal.
“I had a wrist pain but I am always ready to push myself to cross the line for my country….I hope I’ll be able to give India more of such moments preferably a Gold at the Asian Games and Paris Olympics as well,” she added.
Chanu, who hurt her wrist during a training session in September, had competed in the National Games with the injury in October.
“We couldn’t do much (about the injury) because we didn’t want to skip the World Championships. Now, we will focus on her wrist because we have a lot of time before the next event,” India’s head coach Vijay Sharma said.
“We were not taking any pressure for this event. This is the weight Mira lifts regularly. From now we will start increasing the weights and improving.
“Seeing Mira I believe we are on the right track and she is definitely going to only work harder to bring out her A- game in the upcoming Asian Games and the Olympics.”
The 2022 World Championship is the first qualifying event for the 2024 Paris Olympics, where weightlifting events will be cut from 14 at Tokyo Games to 10.
However, it is an additional event and not a compulsory one.
Under the 2024 Olympic qualification rule, a lifter has to compulsorily compete in the 2023 World Championships and the 2024 World Cup.
Apart from the above, the lifter also has to participate in three of the following events – the 2022 World Championships, the 2023 Continental Championships, the 2023 Grand Prix 1, the 2023 Grand Prix II and the 2024 Continental Championships.
The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) will publish the Olympic Qualification Rating (OQR) of each weight category at the end of the qualification period.
A weightlifter’s best three performances at the qualifying events will be taken into account for final assessment. (PTI)
