IWF World Weightlifting Championships 2026 in Ningbo: Full Schedule in Your Time Zone and the Battles Everyone Is Talking About

The IWF World Weightlifting Championships 2026 run from Tuesday 27 October to Sunday 8 November at the Ningbo Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium in Ningbo, China. Thirteen competition days, 16 bodyweight categories, 531 lifters from 99 nations on the official start book, and the first Worlds of the Los Angeles 2028 qualifying period.

Below: every Group A session with the start time in your own city (pick it from the list, or let the page read your device) and the categories where the real fights are expected.

Want to play along? Pick the winner and the winning total in all 16 categories in our free game – 20 seconds per category, a year of Torokhtiy All Access for the best predictor: Lift Predictions.

Quick facts

• Dates: 27 October – 8 November 2026 (opening ceremony on 27 October before the evening session).
• Venue: Ningbo Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium, Jiangbei District, Ningbo, Zhejiang – about 10,000 seats.
• Why it matters: the first World Championships in China since Guangzhou 1995, and the first senior Worlds held in the new IWF weight categories that came into force on 1 August 2026. It is also the first event of the LA 2028 Olympic qualification window (27 July 2026 – 7 May 2028).
• Categories: Men 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 85 / 95 / 110 / +110 kg; Women 49 / 53 / 57 / 61 / 69 / 77 / 86 / +86 kg. The Olympic classes for LA 2028 are M 65, 75, 85, 95, 110, +110 and W 53, 61, 69, 77, 86, +86; M 60, M 70, W 49 and W 57 are world-championship-only classes.
• Records: with the new categories the record books were reset. The IWF published "world standards" for each class; the first lift above a standard becomes the world record. Several standards have already fallen at the 2026 Asian Games and continental championships, so expect record lifts in Ningbo to be announced as "new world record" on the day.

Full schedule – Group A sessions

Choose your city and the table shows every session in your local time, with the local date (an evening session in Ningbo is an early-morning session in the Americas, and the Sunday finals land on Saturday night on the US West Coast). The page reads your device's time zone by default.

Time zones: Ningbo is UTC+8 all year. New York is UTC-4 until 31 October and UTC-5 from Sunday 1 November (clocks go back). Europe switched to winter time on 25 October, so London is UTC+0 and Barcelona, Berlin, Paris and Rome are UTC+1 for the whole championship; Kyiv is UTC+2.

Source: the IWF start book and timetable (16 October 2026), cross-checked with the Group A timetable published by USA Weightlifting on 20–23 October. The organisers can still move a session after the final entries; check the start list on the morning of the session. For the fans playing Lift Predictions: each category closes for predictions when its Group B starts, a few hours before Group A – for Women 57 kg and Men +110 kg a day earlier.

The battles everyone is talking about

Form lines below come from the 2026 Asian Games (Aichi-Nagoya, September), the continental championships of spring 2026 and the 2025 Worlds in Førde. Entry totals are from the IWF start book of 16 October; lifters can withdraw or change class up to the final weigh-in.

Men +110 kg – the comeback (Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November)

The whole championship builds towards one category: Lasha Talakhadze of Georgia is back on the platform for the first time since Paris 2024. He is entered with a total of 400 kg – far below the numbers he owned in the old +109 class, and he has said himself that 500 kg is out of reach for now – which puts him in Group B on Saturday 7 November (16:30 Ningbo), the day before the Group A session. Against him in the overall ranking: Varazdat Lalayan (Armenia), the reigning world champion with 461 kg last year and an entry of 460; Ali Davoudi (Iran), 466 at the Asian Games; his team-mate Alireza Yousefi, entered with 455; and Ali Ammar Rubaiawi (Iraq), whose 219 kg snatch this year is the best in the new class. The question fans ask is not whether Talakhadze wins but whether he is close enough to make the final clean & jerks matter.

Men 85 kg – the deepest class (Monday 2 November)

Three lifters who could all win: Alexey Churkin (Kazakhstan), 378 kg this year and the 173 kg snatch record of the new class; Abdelrahman Younes (Egypt), born in 2004, who made 392 in the old 88 class in May; and Yeison López (Colombia), the 2025 world champion at 88 who has lifted 397 at the Pan American Championships. López on Younes before the championship: "To say I'm going to beat him would be very arrogant of me." Add Chen Shunnan (China) and Marin Robu (Moldova), and this is the session where an exact-total prediction is worth the most: the winning total could sit anywhere between 375 and 395.

Men 95 kg – Karlos Nasar under pressure (Wednesday 4 November)

Karlos Nasar (Bulgaria) comes to Ningbo after a difficult autumn: his federation filed for insolvency on 1 October, the lifters went unpaid for months, and Nasar himself had health problems in the weeks before departure. His numbers are still the reference – 395 kg at the 2025 Worlds with the then-record 222 kg clean & jerk – but Ali Alipour (Iran) made 398 kg at the Asian Games, Nurgissa Adiletuly (Kazakhstan) has 394, and China brings Qian Feixiang, entered with 395, at home.

Men 110 kg (Friday 6 November)

Akbar Djuraev (Uzbekistan) holds the new-class total record of 428 kg and snatched a record 197 at the Asian Games. Garik Karapetyan (Armenia, entered with 420), Luis Lauret (Romania, 415) and Hristo Hristov (Bulgaria, 410) fight for the podium behind him.

Men 75 kg (Saturday 31 October)

Rahmat Erwin Abdullah (Indonesia) owns the class records that matter most – a 366 kg total and a 206 kg clean & jerk – but Weeraphon Wichuma (Thailand), the 2025 champion at 71 kg, has 365. One kilo between them on paper, and Abdullah's jerk is the kind that decides a session on the last attempt.

Men 70 and 65 kg (Friday 30 and Wednesday 28 October)

At 70 kg, a 349 kg total has already been lifted in this class this year, so that is the number to beat; China's He Baozhen (entered with 336) and Korea's Lee Sangyeon (330) are among the leading entries. At 65 kg, He Yueji (China) holds the total record at 329 kg and lifts at home, while Furkan Özbek (Turkey), the 2025 champion, and Hampton Morris (USA), who has jerked 200 kg in training according to USA Weightlifting, are the ones who can take the session away from him.

Men 60 kg – the opening session (Tuesday 27 October)

The championship starts with Yang Yang (China, entered with 300) in front of the home crowd. A 300-plus total on day one would set the tone for the home team, and the 174 kg clean & jerk record of the class is within reach.

Women 49 kg – the home favourite opens the women's programme (Tuesday 27 October)

China opens with Zhao Jinhong, unbeaten in her last four international meets, in front of a home crowd; the class record already stands at 215 kg (94 + 121), so a win may need a total in the 210s.

Women 53 and 57 kg (Thursday 29 and Friday 30 October)

At 53 kg, Zhang Haiqin (China) has made 227 kg at the Chinese Grand Prix, four kilos above the 223 kg world standard of the class; Miranda Ulrey (USA) and Nina Sterckx (Belgium) lead the rest, and India's Mirabai Chanu, the Tokyo silver medallist, lifts in Group B. At 57 kg the class record has already been pushed to 238 kg this year; Chinese Taipei's Chen Guan-Ling (entered with 220), Armenia's Aleksandra Grigoryan (215) and Ukraine's Olha Ivzhenko (210) are among the top entries. Women 57 kg closes for predictions a day early: its Group B lifts on Thursday 29 October.

Women 61 kg – two lifters, one number (Sunday 1 November)

Yang Liuyue (China) holds the total record at 251 kg with a 112 kg snatch, and her team-mate Pei Xinyi has also made 251 – two lifters from one team on the same number, with the 139 kg clean & jerk record of the class as the target for the last attempts. Sophia Shaft (USA, entered with 244), Ukraine's Kamila Konotop and Canada's Maude Charron (both 240) and Kuo Hsing-Chun (Chinese Taipei), the Tokyo champion, are the challengers. An Olympic class for LA 2028, so every kilo here counts twice.

Women 69 kg – after Reeves' withdrawal (Tuesday 3 November)

The class lost its headline act when Olivia Reeves (USA), the Olympic champion, withdrew with a stress fracture, and no Chinese entry is listed here either. Julieth Rodríguez (Colombia, 247 kg this year) and Germany's Lisa Marie Schweizer are among the leading entries, and Chen Wen-Huei (Chinese Taipei) lifts in Group B. The class record stands at 273 kg (121 + 152).

Women 77 kg (Thursday 5 November)

The Chinese entries against three lifters to watch: Egypt's Sara Ahmed (entered with 265) and two who changed class for Ningbo – Mattie Rogers (USA), with 14 world championship medals already, moved down to 77 after Reeves' withdrawal, and Colombia's Olympic medallist Mari Leivis Sánchez has moved up from 71. A 260 kg total has already been made in this class this year – that is the bar for gold.

Women 86 and +86 kg – the heavy finale (Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November)

At 86 kg, Liao Guifang (China, 288 at the Grand Prix) leads on paper from Ella Nicholson (USA, entered with 266), Alina Marushchak (Bahrain) and Emma Poghosyan (Armenia). In the super-heavyweight final session, Li Yan (China) has the 145 kg snatch record and a 323 kg total; Park Hyejeong (South Korea), the 2025 world champion, leads the challengers, with Venezuela's Naryury Perez and Cuba's Marifelix Sarria (both entered with 280) next on the list.

Teams to watch

• China at home. China lifts at home for the first time at a Worlds since 1995 and has entered 16 lifters in 12 of the 16 classes – the home crowd in a 10,000-seat arena is the one factor no form line can measure.
• USA. Sixteen athletes; the women are the defending team champions. Olivia Reeves is out injured; Mattie Rogers, Hampton Morris, Sophia Shaft, Caden Cahoy and Miranda Ulrey carry the medal hopes.
• Armenia. Thirteen lifters, led by Lalayan and Garik Karapetyan; Armenia hosts the next Worlds in Yerevan in 2027.
• Bulgaria. Five lifters despite the federation's financial crisis; everything rests on Nasar and Hristov.
• Georgia, Colombia, Thailand, Egypt, Iran, Uzbekistan – each with at least one lifter who can win a category outright.

What the new categories mean

Ningbo is the first senior Worlds in the 2026 classes. Three things change for fans:

1. Records. Every class starts from an IWF world standard rather than an old record; the first lift above the standard is the world record. Expect "WR" flashes in sessions where nobody expected them.
2. Class changes. Many lifters moved up or down by one class in August, so some duels from 2025 are gone and new ones appeared – López vs Younes at 85 kg, Djuraev vs Karapetyan at 110 kg, Talakhadze vs Lalayan at +110 kg.
3. The road to LA 2028. Results here count towards Olympic qualification in the 12 Olympic classes; the non-Olympic classes (M 60, M 70, W 49, W 57) are World-Championship titles only.

Play the Worlds, not just watch them

Predict the winner and the winning total in each of the 16 categories. Scoring: 2 points for the right winner, up to 3 points for the total (exact, within 5 kg, within 10 kg), 80 points max. First place wins a year of Torokhtiy All Access (60+ programs); 2nd and 3rd place get two training programs of their choice, places 4–10 and every category champion one program, places 11–50 a 25% code. Your first exact total earns a 20% code, and every exact total is a ticket in the draw for one more year of All Access.

Each category closes when its Group B session starts in Ningbo – the first two (Women 49 kg and Men 60 kg) close in the night of 26–27 October New York time; Women 57 kg and Men +110 kg close a day before their Group A session.

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FAQ

When are the 2026 World Weightlifting Championships? 27 October – 8 November 2026 in Ningbo, China.

What time do sessions start in the US? Most Group A sessions start at 19:00 Ningbo time, which is 7:00 AM New York until 31 October and 6:00 AM from 1 November. The Men +110 kg final starts at 1:00 AM New York on 8 November.

Which weight categories are used? The new 2026 IWF classes: Men 60, 65, 70, 75, 85, 95, 110, +110 kg; Women 49, 53, 57, 61, 69, 77, 86, +86 kg.

Is Lasha Talakhadze competing? Yes – he is entered in Men +110 kg and lifts in Group B on Saturday 7 November (16:30 Ningbo), his first competition since the Paris 2024 Olympics; Group A follows on Sunday 8 November.

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