Mirabai Chanu with the silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics
This calendar year has lots of mega sporting events scheduled and the Commonwealth Games which is scheduled to take place next month in Birmingham is one of them. The Indian contingency has their eyes set on this event and the zeal to come good in this event is pretty much evident in their approach. Taking their preparations further, the Indian weightlifting team has announced that they will travel to Birmingham one month before the event starts. The idea is to acclimatize with the conditions and undergo a preparatory camp ahead of the mega event says the Indian weightlifting team
The CWG games are slated to commence on July 28 and will go on till August 8 in Birmingham, UK. Weighing on the matter Indian Weightlifting Federation president Sahdev Yadav said "The government has approved the preparatory camp. All the bookings are done. We are just waiting for the visas, the lifters will travel one month in advance and the exact date will be finalized after their visas arrive. The tentative travel dates are June 20 or 21"
Mirabai Chanu who is being considered one of India's biggest hope to win the medal at CWG is all set to headline the inaugural edition of the Khelo India Youth, Junior and Senior National ranking women weightlifting championships to be held at Nagrota Bagwan, Himachal Pradesh from June 14 to 22. Chanu, to her credit, has won a silver in the Glasgow edition in 2014 and later won gold in 2018. As Chanu gears up for this event, she finished a month-long training camp in the US last month. Her colleague Jeremy Lalrinnunga also had to travel for the same program but was unable to do so due to visa issues. India has faired quite decently at the Commonwealth games stage with nine medals which include five golds, two silvers and two bronze.
Indian Team for Commonwealth Games
Women: Mirabai Chanu (49kg), Bindyarani Devi (55kg), Popy Hazarika (59kg), Harjinder Kaur (71kg), Punam Yadav (76kg), Usha Kumari (87kg) and Purnima Pandey (+87kg).
Men: Sanket Sagar (55kg), Gururaja Poojary (61kg), Jeremy Lalrinnunga (67kg), Achinta Sehuli (73kg), Ajay Singh (81kg), Vikas Thakur (96kg), Lovepreet Singh (109kg) and Gurdeep Singh (+109kg).
(Inputs from PTI)
