Manipur's Mirabai Chanu to lead India at World Weightlifting Championships 2026

Olympic medallist Mirabai Chanu will lead India’s campaign at the 2026 World Weightlifting Championships, which begin in Ningbo, China, on October 27 and run until November 8. Indian viewers can watch the competition through live streaming.

The championships, to be held at the Ningbo Olympic Sports Centre, will serve as the first of 10 qualifying events for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, according to Olympics.com. More than 500 athletes are expected to compete at the global event.

Chanu, 32, will compete in the women’s 53kg category as she begins her campaign in the new weight class for the LA 2028 Olympic cycle. She won silver in the women’s 49kg category at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and also competed in the same division at Paris 2024. However, the 49kg category has been dropped from the weightlifting programme for the 2028 Games, prompting her move to 53kg.

The championships will be an important opportunity for lifters to begin accumulating points towards Olympic qualification. Under the qualification system, athletes must record three combined totals, calculated from their snatch and clean and jerk performances, during the first qualification period and two during the second. All five results must come in the same Olympic weight category.

The Olympic Qualification Ranking (OQR) will take into account each athlete’s three best totals from the first period and two best totals from the second. Every kilogram lifted will count as one ranking point.

At the end of the qualification process, the eight highest-ranked eligible weightlifters in each Olympic weight category will secure quota places for the LA 2028 Olympics, with the places allocated directly to the athletes.

World Weightlifting Championships 2026: India squad

Women

Mirabai Chanu – 53kg

Gyaneshwari Yadav – 53kg

Usha – 61kg

Nirupama Devi Seram – 61kg

Men

Lovepreet Singh – +110kg