World Weightlifting Championship | Achita Sheuli withdraws from competition due to hamstring injury
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It was a sad end to CWG champion Achinta Sheuli's campaign as he was forced to withdraw from the World Championships in the last minute after he pulled his hamstring. He was slated to take part in the men's 73kg event, but an injury during the warm up, dashed his hopes of participating.
He was put in Group C of the competetion, and the each lifter is assigned a group on the basis of their entry weight. "Achinta injured his hamstring during the warm-ups after the weigh-in. We didn't want to aggravate the injury, so we took a call at the last moment to withdraw from the competition," head coach Vijay Sharma told PTI on Saturday.
So far, India has only mefdal in the competition, when Mirabai Chanu won a silver medal in the women's 49kg event. On the other hand, Chanambam Rishikanta Singh (61kg) and S Bindyarani Devi (59kg) finished 22nd and 25th in their respective events. The 2022 World Championship is the first qualifying event for the 2024 Paris Olympics, where weightlifting events will be cut from 14 at Tokyo Games to 10.
However, it is an additional event and not a compulsory one. Under the 2024 Olympic qualification rule, a lifter has to compulsorily compete in the 2023 World Championships and the 2024 World Cup. Apart from the above, the lifter also has to participate in three of the following events -- the 2022 World Championships, the 2023 Continental Championships, the 2023 Grand Prix 1, the 2023 Grand Prix II and the 2024 Continental Championships.
The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) will publish the Olympic Qualification Ranking (OQR) of each weight category at the end of the qualification period. A weightlifter's best three performances at the qualifying events will be taken into account for final assessment.
