Weightlifting: Chanu, Sathish, Ragul to miss World Championship

Senior weightlifters including defending champion Mirabai Chanu, Sathish Sivalingam and Venkat Rahul Ragala will miss this year's World Championship opting to continue their rehabilitation program instead.

The World Championship is one of the ten qualifying events for the 2020 Japan Olympics. India will be fielding its B team, consisting junior lifters, in the event scheduled to be held in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan from November 1.

"Senior players have not had the time to rest since the Commonwealth Games in April. After the CWG, they were supposed to attend a rehabilitation camp but things didn't go as per plan," National coach Vijay Sharma told PTI.

"Some lifters went home, some went elsewhere. The players completely wasted about a month in this. The result was that they were unable to get the rest their body required. As a result, we had a dismal Asian Games outing. It was a major setback for us," he said.

India failed to win a single medal at the Asian Games this year. Ajay Singh and