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Varazdat Lalayan from Armenia strengthened his position as the world’s top super-heavyweight when he won his second world title on the final day of the IWF World Championships in Forde, Norway.

Park Hyejeong won the women’s super-heavyweights on a good day for Korea. Her team-mates Song Yeonghwan and Lee Yangjae finished third and fourth in the men’s event when Ali Davoudi from Iran bombed out in clean and jerk.

Varazdat Lalayan (ARM)

The Fordehuset was full to its 1,700 capacity once more as a hugely successful Championships came to a close. The audience saw Lalayan take the lead with his first attempt and finish well clear of Gor Minasyan from Bahrain and Song.

In his past seven competitions Lalayan, 26, has been beaten only once, finishing 3kg behind Lasha Talakhadze at the Paris Olympic Games. Lasha was not lifting in the other six – he was in the audience in Forde – and Lalayan’s winning margin has ranged from 8kg to 35kg.

Today it was 14kg when Lalayan made 211-250-461. His four good lifts was a far better effort than anybody else in a session when there were 26 red lights on the scoreboard compared with 16 whites. A total of 12 attempts were declined.

Gor Minasyan (BRN)

Two athletes were not fit to lift, the Georgian teenager Bakari Turmanidze and Ayat Sharifi from Iran. Two bombed out in clean and jerk – Davoudi after failing at 243, 244 and 246kg, and Aaron Williams from the United States on 220, 221 and 225kg.

Williams lost his final attempt to a jury review. If he had made it he might have won the bronze on total, having snatched 185kg.

Minasyan made 205-242-457 and Song 175-235-410. Two B Group athletes moved up to fifth and sixth overall because of all those red lights, Vladyslav Prylypko from Ukraine and local hero Ragnar Holme, who is a plumber in Forde as well as a weightlifter.

The women’s medal contenders also had a bad day. None of the top five made more than one clean and jerk, and when Park declined her final attempt it meant that all three medallists finished with only three good lifts.

Park Hyejeong (KOR)

Park won on 125-158-283, her lowest total for three years. Marifelix Sarria from Cuba and Mary Theisen Lappen from the United States were second and third, both well below the numbers they made in finishing first and second at the Pan American Championships in July. Sarria made 118-157-275 and Theisen Lappen 115-154-269.

When Theisen Lappen lost her 159kg final attempt to a jury review, Emily Campbell had a chance to win a medal for Great Britain, but she failed on 159kg and was fourth across the board.

Zhu Linhan, an 18-year-old debutant from China, won snatch bronze and finished fifth on 116-140-256.

Marifelix Sarria (CUB)

A former skiing champion finished 11th, one place below her target in Forde. The German Kiara Klug, 22, was a national downhill champion as a teenager, but her Olympic dreams have switched from winter to summer.

She gave up skiing five years ago because of a “mental and emotional crisis combined with an eating disorder and a coach with whom the chemistry wasn’t right”. Klug took to the gym and weightlifting has helped her to a much better place.

“Training sucks sometimes but I love competing, I love getting ready for a competition and I love the sport. I feel I belong,” she said.

Klug, 22, won medals at the European Championships this year and her long-term aim is qualifying for the Olympics.

Are there any transferable skills from downhill skiing to the weightlifting platform?

“I learned in skiing about being in the zone. When you go to the start gate, the focus is all on you. It’s the same now when I go on stage. You shut everything else out. This is your time – and I love that.”

Kiara Klug (GER)

In her skiing career Klug weighed about 20kg less than today’s 93kg, and she will get heavier yet.

“I want to go up and see how I feel, to try and get more power,” she said. “I’m planning to bulk up over the winter. I’m not so heavy that I couldn’t lose the weight, so I will try heavier, and if it looks like I’ll have a better chance of qualifying at 86 or whatever the Olympic weight class is, I’ll be able to try that.”

Klug made 111-130-241, one kilo below her best, and knows she has plenty of work to do in clean and jerk.

By Brian Oliver

Photos by Giorgio Scala/Deepbluemedia