Commonwealth Weightlifting Championship: Indian lifters expected to dominate even without Mirabai
Greater Noida. Even without Olympic medalist Mirabai Chanu, hosts India are eyeing a medal haul at the Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships beginning here on Wednesday. India has always dominated the Commonwealth Games and Commonwealth Championships. Giants like China and North Korea do not participate in this. The Commonwealth Championship since 2011 has been the best performance by India except in 2013 and 2021. Last time India won 16 medals but finished second behind Canada due to lack of gold medals. This year the Indian lifters would like to make up for that gap and also get the advantage of playing in their own country.
Tokyo Olympic silver medalist Mirabai, Youth Olympic champion Jeremy Lalrinuga, Commonwealth medalist Achinta Sheuli, Bindiyarani Devi and Sanket Sargar are not participating due to different reasons. Despite this, there are many medal hopefuls in the 20-member Indian contingent. Many of them managed in 2021 and won medals in Uzbekistan. Former Asian champion Jilli Dalabehera will compete in 45kg and 2022 Junior World Championship silver medalist Dnyaneshwari Devi will compete in 49kg. Poppy Hazarika (59kg) and Commonwealth Games bronze medalists Harjinder Kaur (71kg) and Lovepreet Singh (109kg) would be looking to convert their silver medals into gold. Two-time champion Ajay Singh will be eyeing a hat-trick of gold medals.
Sheuli, who is not competing in Asian Games-bound N Ajith’s (73kg) weight category, will be looking to put in his best performance. This tournament is being held in India for the second time. Earlier in 2015 it was organized in Pune. In this, 253 lifters will compete in senior, junior and youth categories, of which 52 are Indians. After this tournament at Gautam Buddha University
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The AWF Asian Junior and Youth Weightlifting Championship is also to be held.
Indian team: Women: Komal Kohar (45 kg), Jhambilla Dalabehera (49 kg), Dnyaneshwari Yadav (49 kg), Sharbani Das (55 kg), Poppy Hazarika (59 kg), Nirupama Devi (64 kg), S Pallavi ( 64kg), Harjinder Kaur (71kg), Vanshita Verma (81kg), Poornima Pandey (plus 87kg) Men: Mukund Ahir (55kg), T Madhavan (67kg), Shubham Todkar (61kg), N Ajit (73kg), Ajay Singh (81kg), Amarjit Guru (89kg), Vishwakarma Jagdish (96kg), Harshad Wadekar (96kg), Harcharan Singh (102kg), Lovepreet Singh (109kg).
