Mirabai Chanu’s medal hopes swell after North Korea’s withdrawal from Olympics
2 min read Star Indian weightlifter Mirabai Chanu’s probabilities of profitable a medal on the upcoming Olympics acquired a shot within the arm on Tuesday after North Korea introduced it is not going to be collaborating within the Tokyo Games.
North Korea pulled out of the Tokyo Olympics, to be held from July 23 to August 8, to guard its athletes from the “world public health crisis caused by COVID-19.”
Former world champion Chanu presently occupies the fourth place within the ladies’s 49kg Tokyo Games qualifying rankings with 3869.8038 Robi factors — the International Weightlifting Federation’s official calculation technique.
Her nearest rival, Ri Song Gum of North Korea, who had pipped Chanu to take the bronze medal on the 2019 World Championship by lifting 204kg as towards 201kg by the Indian, is positioned third with 4209.4909 factors.
Thus, Chanu stands to realize if North Korea sticks to its determination of withdrawing from the Tokyo Olympics.
“We are happy to hear this news about North Korea withdrawing from the Olympics. But, honestly our focus was on competing with China,” nationwide coach Vijay Sharma advised PTI.
“At the end of the day, individual performance is most important and we will give our best in the Asian Championship next week,” he added.
The newest qualifying rankings characteristic three Chinese weightlifters within the high 5. Hou Zhihui (4703.1982) heads the record whereas reigning world champion and world report holder Jiang Huihua (4667.8878) and Zhang Rong (3837.8294) occupy the second and fifth spots respectively.
However, solely one of many three Chinese lifters will be capable to compete on the Olympics as a nation can ship just one athlete per weight class, successfully making Chanu the second finest lifter in her class.
As issues stand, by way of whole weight lifted, solely Huihua (212kg), Zhihui (211kg) and Gum (209kg) have lifted greater than Chanu (201kg). The different lifters are considerably behind the Indian, the closest being USA’s Delacruz Jourdan Elizabeth, whose finest effort is 195kg, adopted by Indonesia’s Aisah Windy Cantika (190kg).
Chanu had a disappointing outing on the 2016 Rio Olympics. The diminutive Manipuri had didn’t report a authorized carry in any of her three makes an attempt in clear & jerk and thus couldn’t get an total whole in ladies’s 48kg.
The 26-year-old will subsequent be seen on the Asian Weightlifting Championships to be held at Tashkent in Uzbekistan from April 16 to 25.
