New Delhi: On course to seal a berth for the Tokyo Games, former world champion Mirabai Chanu maintained her eighth spot in the Olympic qualifiers ranking list released by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) on Thursday. In the race for Olympic qualification, the 25-year-old, who competes in the 49kg category, has gathered 2966.6406 ranking points till now. To qualify for Tokyo, a weightlifter must compete in at least one event in each of the three periods of six months (spread over November 2018 to April 2020), at least six events overall and in at least one gold and silver level event.

"The ranking points are based on the number of events a lifter participates in and Mirabai has missed a few competitions, including the World Championship in 2018, due to her back injury," National coach Vijay Sharma told PTI. "But being eighth now is not a problem as after the final rankings list is made in April and the best results will be taken into account," he added.