Li Wenyuan (23, China), one of the top weightlifters in the world, has withdrawn from the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games due to an elbow injury .This leaves the door open for 2023 World Champion Park Hye-jung (20-Goyang City Hall) or 2021 World Championships gold medalist Son Young-hee (30-Busan City Sports Council) to take the top spot on the podium in the women’s middleweight category at the Hangzhou Asian Games. “Li Wenyuan has withdrawn from the Asian Games,” MyInfo, the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee’s information site, said in a weightlifting preview on Monday.”Li Wenyuan was injured at the world championships about 10 days ago and has decided to focus on his treatment,” Chinese media reported. Li Wenyuan is the world record holder in the women’s 87kg+ lift (147kg), snatch (186kg) and total (332kg).She has also repeatedly won major championships, including the 2019 World Championships in Pattaya, the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, and the 2022 World Championships in Bogotá. At the 2021 World Championships, all Chinese athletes were suspended by the Chinese Weightlifting Federation .However, at the 2023 World Weightlifting Championships in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Nov. 16 (local time), she failed to lift 130 kilograms in the first and second lifts and withdrew from the competition without standing on the platform. She also withdrew from the Hangzhou Asian Games .The women’s heavyweight champion at the 2023 World Championships was Park Hye-jung.Park took first place in all three categories, lifting 124 kilograms in the upright, 165 kilograms in the snatch, and 289 kilograms in the total .It was the first time in two tournaments and two years that a South Korean athlete had won the Women’s Middleweight title since Son Young-hee in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 2021.Park Hye-jung and Son Young-hee will compete together at the Hangzhou Asian Games. With the top weightlifter in the category out, Park and Son have a chance to become the first South Korean weightlifters to win an Asian Games title in 13 years, since Jang Jang-ran (now Vice Minister 토토 of Culture, Sports and Tourism) in Guangzhou in 2010.