Nine days of competition will be played out at Ningbo Youngor Gymnasium from tomorrow onwards.

Medals will be won across 20 categories, 10 for men and 10 for women.

Among the nations represented will be India, whose challenge for glory will be led by 2017 world champion Mirabai Chanu.

Mirabai, who moved up from 48 kilograms to 49kg following the International Weightlifting Federation's change of weight categories, has made an impressive comeback from a lower-back injury that ruled her out of action for nearly nine months.

In February, the 24-year-old managed 82kg in snatch and 110kg in clean and jerk to clinch the gold medal with a total of 192kg at the EGAT Cup in Chiang Mai in Thailand.

The event was the first of the six Olympic qualifiers for Mirabai, who is working towards beating her personal best of 196kg in Ningbo.

"Mira's aim for the Olympics is 210kg," national coach Vijay Sharma told Press Trust of India.

"In the Asian Championship, we aim to go above the 196kg mark."

The qualification process for Tokyo 2020 is based on the performances of the weightlifters in six events over 18 months.

From those, the four best results registered by a lifter will be taken into consideration.

Every athlete also needs to compete in a minimum of one gold level and either one gold level or one silver level event during the one-and-a-half year time frame.