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Two silver medallists from the Paris Olympic Games put up impressive performances on the second day of the IWF World Championships in Forde, Norway – but they could not overcome the might of PRK and China and had to settle for second place again.

Mihaela Cambei from Romania, who was beaten for 49kg Olympic gold by Hou Zhouhui’s last lift in Paris, weighed in lighter than everybody else and fought “like a warrior” in the women’s 53kg behind Kang Hyon Gyong from PRK.

Kang Hyon Gyong (PRK)

In a tense finish to the men’s 60kg a couple of hours later, Theerapong Silachai from Thailand made up 10kg in his last two lifts but fell short of the target set by Wang Hao from China, who was making only his second international appearance since he won the 56kg junior world title in 2017. Silachai had finished second to a Chinese winner in Paris, too – Li Fabin at 61kg.

Both Cambei and Silachai won a gold medal, in snatch and clean and jerk respectively.

Kang failed with three attempts, one of them for a clean and jerk world record, but still made it two from two for PRK in the women’s events. Her 93-121-214 left Kang 6kg clear of Cambei on 94-114-208.

The bronze medallist in Paris, Surodchana Khambao from Thailand, was third on 90-110-200. Kang’s total was only 1kg more than her formidable team-mate Ri Song Gum made in the 48kg on Thursday.

Mihaela Cambei (ROU)

Cambei was very happy to meet the targets she had set herself, making five good lifts for a career best in clean and jerk by 2kg and on total by 3kg.

“I wanted to win gold in the snatch, then fight like a warrior for a place on the podium on total,” she said. “I did it, now let’s see how it goes from here.”

Cambei weighed in light at 50.91kg. “It has been very hard to go up in weight,” Cambei said. “But at least I had time to work on it, and now it’s my responsibility to keep going.”

Cansel Ozkan from Turkey, a bronze medallist in snatch, was fourth on 93-104-197.

Kang had three white lights from the referees for her first snatch attempt, but it was ruled a no-lift by the jury for bending and extending. She missed her third snatch at 96kg, and a clean and jerk world record attempt on 127kg.

The 19-year-old Chinese debutant Du Meiyuan failed with a junior world record snatch attempt at 94kg before retiring.

Chen Guan-Ling from Chinese Taipei ended a disappointing year with a bombout. In six competitions since winning the 55kg junior world title on 217kg in Spain just over a year ago, Chen has never matched that total. Three snatch failures meant she has had one bombout and 12 missed attempts in her four appearances this year, but at least she won a clean and jerk bronze on 113kg.

Wang Hao (CHN)

Wang Hao was 4kg short of the world record in snatch with a lift to come, but he declined it. He then made all three clean and jerks to set a target on 138-164-302. His teenaged team-mate Yuan Hao missed a 132kg junior world record attempt in snatch.

When Wang Hao had finished, Silachai and Pang Un Chol from PRK both had two attempts to come, but they were so far behind they duelled instead for clean and jerk gold. Silachai made both attempts to claim it on 129-170-299, with Pang third on 127-168-395 after failing at 171kg.

Goderdzi Berdelidze from Georgia was fourth, 12kg behind Pang, and Yuan Hao was fifth with a total of 281kg.

Theerapong Silachai (THA)

In the B Group, Joshua Mboya from Kenya made 61kg more than his entry total. That was apparently down to an administrative error, but even so Mboya added 23kg to his best total, despite dropping his body weight by 2kg, in making 110-131-241.

“It’s the result of hard work in training,” said Mboya, 20, who is studying at college.

Kenya is beginning to see the benefits of a change in recruitment policy. “What we did in the past, taking people from other sports, was a mistake,” said John Ogolla, president of the Kenyan Federation. “No more gymnasts and body-builders for us, we take athletes direct from schools instead, straight into weightlifting.

Joshua Mboya (KEN)

“We have some good young athletes coming through and we hope to have six in Glasgow next year. At the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022 we had three.”

By Brian Oliver

Photos by Giorgio Scala/Deepbluemedia