Tokyo Olympics weightlifting medalist Mirabai Chanu to skip Tashkent World Championships

Tokyo Olympics silver medalist Mirabai Chanu will skip next month's World Championships in Tashkent to focus on the 2022 Asian Games in China, National weightlifting coach Vijay Sharma has said.

The Commonwealth Games (CWG) in Birmingham are also scheduled to take place next year.

"Winning a medal in the 2022 Asian Games would be the main target for Olympic silver medalist Mirabai Chanu. Even if she does not do anything special, she will win the CWG gold. But the main target is the Asian Games. We have sufficient time to train for the Asiad, which is very close to the CWG. If we achieve the peak too early, then it will be difficult to maintain that performance for a long period of time,” Sharma told reporters on Wednesday.

Mirabai will secure a Commonwealth Games berth on the basis of her ranking.

“When we are qualifying (for the Commonwealth Games) on the basis of her No 1 ranking, then there is no need to go to the World Championships (which is also a qualifying event for the 2022 Commonwealth Games). We have a (CWG qualifying) competition (in Singapore) in February, we need to test ourselves there," the coach added.

Mirabai Chanu is working on her snatch technique

Sharma said the ace weightlifter is working on rectifying a fault in her snatch technique.

“We are working on Mira’s snatch technique. We are trying to rectify a technical fault. You need time for that. I cannot see the kind of performance she needs to produce to compete at the World Championships. Since we are working on the technique, there is no question of how much she does in snatch. In clean and jerk, she has not gone past 100-105kg. We are not taking load in jerk. If you don’t prepare the body for taking the load and rush, then there is a chance of picking up an injury,” Sharma concluded.