2019 World Weightlifting Championships: Mirabai Chanu finishes fourth

Despite living up to her vintage self, former world champion Saikhom Mirabai Chanu finished fourth in the women's 49kg weightlifting event at the ongoing World Championships, with a total of 201kg, compared to her total of 194kg at the 2017 World Championships event.

The ace Indian weightlifter, who had won the gold in the 48kg category at the 2017 World Weightlifting Championships, stepped up in style to inch closer to a podium finish, but to no avail. Her previous best was 199kg (86kg+113kg) at the Asian Championships this year where she finished fourth.

Mirabai could not compete at the World Championships last year, a gold level Olympic qualifier, owing to an injury that forced her out of the Asian Games in Jakarta. Nevertheless, the 25-year-old’s primary target was to gather as many points as possible to stay in the hunt for Tokyo Olympics 2020, as she was India's brightest medal prospect in the discipline.

She successfully lifted 84kg and 87kg only to end with an unsuccessful attempt of 89kg in the snatch competition. The two Chinese lifters Hou Zhihui and Jiang Huihua took the competition by storm to secure first and second places respectively. Mirabai lifted a total of 114 kg in clean and jerk competition with an unsuccessful attempt of 118kg, thereby, finishing fourth in the competition.

Mirabai, who won the Commonwealth Games gold last year, spent the most of 2018 nursing injuries that kept her out of action for nearly nine months. She moved up to 49kg following a reshuffle in weight categories. The category has fierce competition with at least two Chinese lifters lifting more than 200kg consistently.

In what was rather a disappointing start to India's campaign at the World Championships, Jhilli Dalabehera failed to register a lift in the snatch section of the women's 45kg event yesterday. She crashed out of the tournament with three failed attempts to lift 68kgs in the snatch event. She lifted 88kg in clean and jerk competition and failed to lift 92kg and 93kg in her second and third try respectively, having ended with a total of 88kg (0kg+88kg).