IWF 2019 LIFTER OF THE YEAR – AMERICAN AND GEORGIAN WINNERS
Nye for the first, Talakhadze for the third time
Just like in 2017 and 2018, Lasha TALAKHADZE became the year’s Best Male Lifter in 2019 again at the Lifters of the Year election. In WORLD WEIGHTLIFTING’s voting, the Best Woman Lifter is Katherine Elizabeth NYE.
Starting with the latter is not only dictated by politeness but also because NYE – last year’s 71kg world champion – earned this title for the first time and, what is more, this is the first time since 1982 that a USA athlete has won!
Among the men there is no change in the last three elections: Georgia’s giant, TALAKHADZE celebrates his third victory in a row. No wonder, he laid the foundations for this honour with further stupefying world records and another world champion title in 2019 in the superheavy category.
Another record has been registered in this election: more than 50 thousand, precisely 50,514, ballots were cast online on the IWF website for the five male and five female pre-selected lifters, each of them world champions in 2019. The male candidates received 2,000 votes less than the female quintet.
NYE received 9,105 votes for her pole position; followed by KUO Hsing-Chun from Chinese Taipei with her 7,755 nominations of best lifter. In third place we have Colombian Arboleda Leidy Yessenia SOLIS with her 4,784 votes.
In men, TALAKHADZE overwhelmed with his 17,084 votes; Armenian Simon MARTIROSYAN was given 5,514 and third-placed Chinese LYU Xiaojun earned 2,169 votes from the fans. It is worth noting that LYU had already been on the peak a decade ago: in 2009 he was the Lifter of the Year.
Congratulations to all these wonderful champions!
VOTING RESULT 2019
Men
1 TALAKHADZE Lasha GEO +109kg 17,084
2 MARTIROSYAN Simon ARM 109KG 5,514
3 LYU Xiaojun CHN 81kg 2,169
4 SHI Zhiyong CHN 73kg 1,053
5 OM Yun Chol PRK 55kg 410
Women
1 NYE Katherine Elizabeth USA 71kg 9,105
2 KUO Hsing-Chun TPE 49KG 7,755
3 SOLIS Arboleda Leidy Yessenia COL 81KG 4,784
4 DENG Wei CHN 64kg 1,796
5 RIM Jong Sim PRK 76kg 844