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2008 Lifters of the Year: Liu Chunhong and Matthias Steiner

2008 Lifters of the Year: Liu Chunhong and Matthias Steiner

 

At the end of 2008, World Weightlifting, the International Weightlifting Federation’s official quarterly – according to its traditions – asked the weightlifting public of the world to vote for the best weightlifters of the year.

It was the 27th Lifter of the Year election for the men, and the 18th election for the women. For the first time, online voting was available on this website.

Voting ballots were sent from all the five continents. The final ranking was produced on the basis of 456 votes. That was the absolute record so far and we want to thank all those who voted for their chosen favourites. The following scoring system was applied: a vote for 1st place: 7 points, 2nd place: 5 points, 3rd place: 4 points.
2008 was an Olympic year, so obviously the competition was among the champions of Beijing 2008.

It must be noted that over 200 invalid ballots were received for the young Junior world record holder Iranian Saied Alihosseini (probably all from Iranian sources). The Voting Supervisor Commission decided not to validate these, so the talented young superheavyweight lifter finally did not make it to the top ranks.

Among the women, Chinese Liu Chunhong proved to be the Best of 2008. Liu won her second Olympic gold medal and set up further five world records in Beijing. Among the men, Matthias Steiner from Germany, the +105kg hero received the highest number of votes.

Lifter of the Year 2008 – Men

 

 

 

Points

1st place

2nd place

3rd place

1

STEINER Matthias

GER

896

47

78

44

2

ARAMNAU Andrei

BLR

879

39

74

59

3

ZHANG Xiangxiang

CHN

859

41

76

50

4

ILIN Ilya

KAZ

772

28

72

54

5

LONG Qingquan

CHN

724

60

8

66

6

LU Yong

CHN

576

26

34

56

7

LIAO Hui

CHN

548

8

56

53

8

SA Jae-Hyouk

KOR

516

8

44

60

9

DABAYA Vencelas

FRA

79

2

9

5

10

CHIGISHEV Evgeny

RUS

71

5

0

9

11

RYBAKOU Andrei

BLR

41

0

5

40

12

GOEGEBUER Tom

BEL

32

4

0

1

13

KOLECKI Szymon

POL

14

2

0

0

14

SCERBATIHS Viktors

LAT

10

0

2

0

15

HOANG Anh Tuan

VIE

5

0

1

0


HENNEQUIN Benjamin

FRA

5

0

1

0


DOLEGA Marcin

POL

5

0

1

0


SPIESS Jürgen

GER

5

0

1

0

19

ZHANG Jie

CHN

4

0

0

1


VELAGIC Almir

GER

4

0

0

1


Lifter of the Year 2008 – Women

 

 

 

Points

1st place

2nd place

3rd place

1

LIU Chunhong

CHN

1451

113

68

80

2

JANG Mi-Ran

KOR

1307

52

111

97

3

CHEN Yanqing

CHN

1197

107

48

52

4

CHEN Xiexia

CHN

914

60

54

56

5

JAROENRATTANATARAKOO P.

THA

872

43

83

39

6

PAK Hyon Suk

PRK

769

43

52

52

7

CAO Lei

CHN

741

35

36

79

8

ROHDE Julia

GER

16

1

1

1

9

OZKAN Sibel

TUR

7

1

0

0


VUKAS Silvana

SRB

7

1

0

0

11

KOROBKA Olha

UKR

5

0

1

0


USMAN Mariam

NGR

5

0

1

0