Mirabai Chanu’s weight category removed from 2028 LA Olympics weightlifting programme

Chanu will now have to compete and qualify from the 53kg category to make the LA 2028 Games.

When Mirabai Chanu stood on the Tokyo podium in 2021, a silver medal around her neck and tears in her eyes, it felt like the start of a new chapter for Indian weightlifting. Four years later, that very chapter has been rewritten, this time, by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF).

The 49kg category, Chanu’s home for nearly a decade, has been removed from the Olympic programme for the 2028 Los Angeles Games. In its place, the lowest women’s weight division will now begin at 53kg, forcing one of India’s most decorated lifters to rethink her entire competitive journey.

The IWF’s decision comes as part of a larger restructuring of the sport, a move aimed at modernising competition and maintaining its place in the Olympic fold. For women, the new Olympic weight categories have been finalised as 53kg, 61kg, 69kg, 77kg, 86kg and +86kg.

The new structure will come into effect from August 2026, giving athletes roughly two years to adjust before the Los Angeles Games.

For Mirabai, who built her dominance around agility, speed and precision at the lighter end of the scale, the shift presents both physical and psychological challenges.

Also Read: Mirabai Chanu bags silver at 2025 IWF Senior World Weightlifting Championships

The 49kg division was her comfort zone, where she knew every rival, every number and every margin that mattered. Moving up means starting almost from scratch.

Transitioning from 49kg to 53kg isn’t just about gaining four kilograms. It means redesigning training cycles, reworking nutrition plans and developing additional power without compromising flexibility. It means facing heavier lifters who have trained for years in that class, with different leverage, body composition and strength dynamics.

But if there’s one athlete who has built her reputation on resilience, it’s Mirabai Chanu. Her career, marked by the heartbreak of Rio 2016, redemption at Tokyo 2020 and continued podium finishes at world-level meets has always been about reinventing herself under pressure.

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