World Weightlifting Championships 2022: Jeremy Lalrinnunga ruled out, Mirabai Chanu to lead Indian challenge

Youth Olympic champion Jeremy Lalrinnunga will not be a part of the Indian squad at the World Weightlifting Championships 2022 to be held in Bogota, Colombia next month.  

The Indian weightlifter pulled his lower back and thigh during his gold medal-winning performance at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham in July and hasn’t fully recovered from the injury.

Jeremy Lalrinnunga also gave the Asian weightlifting championships a miss last month and hasn’t competed since the CWG. 

"Many lifters from the Commonwealth Games squad are nursing injuries. So we have selected the four lifters who are fit," India’s weightlifting coach Vijay Sharma told PTI earlier this week. 

Led by 2017 world champion and Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Mirabai Chanu, the Indian weightlifters will face a strong challenge at the world championships, which is also the first qualifying event for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

It will also be the first international competition for Mirabai Chanu since winning gold at the Commonwealth Games. She will compete in the women’s 49kg weight division.

Achinta Sheuli, who won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in the men’s 73kg, will compete in the same category at the world championships.

Bindyarani Devi, a CWG silver medallist in the women’s 55kg, has bulked up to compete in the 59kg. At the last edition, Bindyarani Devi won a gold medal in the women’s 55kg clean and jerk. 

CWG bronze medallist Gurdeep Singh will also look to make a mark at the world championships in men’s +109kg. 

The IWF World Championships 2022 will take place at Gran Carpa Americas Corferias in Bogota, Colombia from December 5 to 16.

World Weightlifting Championships 2022: India team

Mirabai Chanu (women’s 49kg), Bindyrani Devi (women’s 59kg), Achinta Sheuli (men’s 73kg) and Gurdeep Singh (men’s +109kg)