Forde, Day 6: Photo Gallery
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Forde, Day 6: Sensational Song makes it five in a row for PRK women – and takes all three of Olivia Reeves’ world records
PRK’s women head home from Norway with a 100 per cent record after Song Kuk Hyang’s remarkable victory at 69kg on day six of the IWF World Championships in Forde. Song took all three of Olivia Reeves’ world records on 120-150-270 despite declining two of her attempts. The men won plenty of medals too, and the team can expect a heroes’ welcome when they return to Pyongyang. “All our citizens will be proud of us. I hope our people will be at the airport to give us a warm welcome home,” said Songnam Jang, vice-president of the PRK Weightlifting Federation and team leader in Forde. Song Kuk Hyang (PRK) Head coach Kim Chun Hui, arguably the most successful coach in the sport, said, “We expected very good results here and we got them, especially from the women.” Since PRK returned to the world stage in 2023 after a four-year Covid-related absence, they have topped the medals table at the Asian Games and a series of other world or continental competitions, setting many world records along the way. Next on their schedule is the Asian Youth Games in Bahrain in the last week of October. “We have prepared strong teams of younger athletes and now we hope for more good results in Bahrain,” said coach Kim. All five winners in Norway won world titles last year, too. The plan was for Song, 24, to compete against Reeves, the American Olympic champion, at 69kg in Forde, but Reeves moved up and lifts at 77kg on Wednesday. Ri Suk (PRK) mobbed by fans when leaving the venue (Photo by Brian Oliver) Sunday’s 63kg winner Ri Suk was mobbed by a group of teenage girls as the team left the Fordehuset venue half an hour after Song’s victory, and posed for photos with them. Other team members joined in, and Jang told the girls, “This is the world champion coach,” as he introduced Kim. Song took the snatch world record on her second lift, the clean and jerk and total on her fourth, and declined numbers three and six. She finished 29kg clear of the Colombian Julieth Rodriguez on 110-131-241. Ingrid Vanesa Segura, a former team-mate of Rodriguez who lifts for Bahrain, made five good lifts before failing on 137kg when going for a junior world record on total. Segura, 19, looked highly impressive in making 107-134-241 in third place. Julieth Rodriguez (COL) Chen Wen-Huei from Chinese Taipei, a bronze medallist at the Tokyo Olympic Games, took clean and jerk bronze from the B Group on 132kg and finished fifth. The first two in this year’s 71kg World Juniors, Charlotte Simoneau from Canada and Olivia Selemaia from New Zealand, both made only two good lifts in seventh and eighth place. There was a world record for PRK in the men’s 88kg too, by Ro Kwang Ryol in clean and jerk. But Yeison Lopez from Colombia outdid Ro with two world records, snatch and total, becoming the first champion from the Americas in Forde. Lopez and Ro made nine good lifts between them while the other 10 athletes struggled. Between them, they made only 15 good lifts. Three men bombed out in snatch and three more in clean and jerk. Ro Kwang Ryol (PRK) The Chinese junior Pan Yunhua did it in both, failing six times in a row. He was desperately close with the last one at 206kg, good enough for a clean and jerk medal, but he lost it behind. The crowd felt his pain and cheered him off the platform. Two athletes from Korea, Park Hyeongo and Jo Daehee, made one snatch and one clean and jerk between them. The others who failed to make a total were Lucas Mueller from Germany, the Armenian Suren Grigoryan and his former team-mate Andranik Karapetyan, who now lifts for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Yeison Lopez (COL) Not surprisingly, there was a medallist from the B Group. Arley Mendez from Chile won snatch silver and finished fourth on 172-196-368. Marin Robu from Moldova was third with two good lifts on 169-200-369. Lopez, 26, broke his own snatch world record with his second lift, then failed on 180kg. He finished 177-210-387, taking the record on total with his final attempt. Ro, 24, was too far behind to catch Lopez but his 215kg clean and jerk was a record. He made 162-215-377. By Brian Oliver Photos by Giorgio
Forde, Day 5: Photo Gallery
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Forde, Day 5: Rizki leaves the best till last for gold, and Rahmat makes podium from B Group despite injury
Rizki Juniansyah has done it again, overcoming his Indonesia team-mate Rahmat Erwin to claim the glory. This time, though, as the IWF World Championships in Forde, Norway reached the halfway point, it was much more than a two-man contest. Rizki won a remarkable 79kg competition that stretched across four sessions and featured 39 athletes. There were 12 world record attempts, senior and junior, by outstanding lifters from China, Kazakhstan, PRK, Egypt, Korea and Indonesia. Only the two from Indonesia were successful. Not one of the 10 A Group athletes made their final attempt, two declining and eight failing, which only added to the drama. Rizki won with his second clean and jerk of 204kg, taking the world record from Rahmat, who had set it in the B Group two and a half hours earlier. Rizki Juniansyah (INA) His 157-204-361 left Rizki 1kg short of the record on total. He did not go for it. “I’ll leave that for next time, hopefully,” he said. Next time is the South East Asian (SEA) Games in Thailand in December. After Rizki famously knocked Rahmat out of the Olympic Games in the final qualifier in April last year, he won gold in Paris. He outperformed Rahmat again at the SEA Games national trials in August and will lift at 79kg again in December, while Rahmat goes up to 88kg. But that is only half the story. Rahmat injured his shoulder while making a snatch at those trials and did even know if he would lift at Fordehuset. He decided to give it a go in the B Group, made four good lifts – one of them a clean and jerk world record of 203kg - and declined his final attempt in both snatch and clean and jerk. Rahmat Erwin (INA) Rahmat was 3kg short of the world record on total on 156-203-359 from his four lifts but, remarkably, that was not enough for a medal on total even though nobody beat the record. Ri Chong Song from PRK and Abdelrahman ‘Abdo’ Younes from Egypt both totalled 360kg in second and third place. Ri made 163-197-360 and Younes 162-198-360. “It could be a small tear but I don’t want surgery,” Rahmat said. “The doctors said I had to rest, so I could only train properly for a week for these Championships. I haven’t been fit enough for clean and jerks, and you can see my body fat percentage has gone up.” Ri, who has made plenty of big totals before, had two white lights for his 201kg final attempt but lost it on jury review for bending and extending. Younes, 20, clearly thought he would win, and left the platform in tears after also failing on 201kg. He also lost a lift on review. Yedige Yemberdi from Kazakhstan, who like Younes roused the crowd on a noisy night, missed a junior world record attempt on 199g, and teenager Ning Gan from China twice failed with junior record attempts. Son Hyeonho from Korea, who bombed out in snatch, missed at 205kg for a clean and jerk world record. The men's 79kg podium Nine of the top 10 were born this century, six were aged 22 or younger, and we will be seeing plenty more of them. The United States also had athletes in both A and B Groups. Ryan Grimsland, who has plenty of relatives in Norway – from where his grandfather moved to the US – put 15kg on his career-best total in the B session on 342kg. Caden Cahoy, one of the biggest improvers in the USA team, went for 204kg after Rizki and finished fifth on a career-best 155-198-353. Caden Cahoy (USA) The difference between the day’s biggest attempt and the smallest was 175kg, which could be a record. Chris Murray from Great Britain, who had shoulder surgery two months ago, went for 30kg openers in the D Group and dropped the bar as soon as it was above his knees. He declined his other four attempts, finishing without a total. This scenario was caused by a new rule for those attempting to qualify for the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games. In the past, athletes have had to “participate” in mandatory qualifying events for a big Games, which meant they did not have to lift if they were not fully fit or chose not to. They could weigh-in, be introduced to the audience, make themselves available for anti-doping testing, and withdraw without lifting. Large numbers of withdrawals during the Olympic qualifying period caused problems for broadcasters and for the image of weightlifting. The Commonwealth Weightlifting Federation (CWF) and the IWF decided that athletes must now “compete” rather than “participate”. They have to attempt lifts. “I was pretty embarrassed about it,” said Murray. “I didn’t want to lift, but they (CWF) haven’t announced another qualifying competition so I had to do it. It’s not a great situation if you’re not fit.” Murray won at 81kg at the Birmingham 2022 Games and is hoping to be fit to win again after an horrific run of injuries and illnesses in the past 18 months. He had a serious elbow injury, tore a hamstring, had two quad tears, suffered glandular fever and shingles, and two months ago he had surgery on a badly damaged shoulder. “So far this year I have had one week of uninterrupted training,” he said. “Every time there’s a new injury you hit another low point, but you go through it day by day, believing that it will all come right in the end. I’ve had to learn to cope with it, with the help of a very good support network at GB Weightlifting that wasn’t there a few years ago.” His recovery period for the shoulder surgery is three to six months. Murray is aiming to make a good enough total at the European Championships next April to qualify for Glasgow. By Brian Oliver Photos by Giorgio
Forde, Day 4 – Photo Gallery
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Forde, Day 4: Four in a row for PRK women, and Thailand claims sensational gold on day of 16 world records
The top four finishers in a remarkable men’s 71kg session all broke world records, and PRK’s formidable women’s team made it four from four at the IWF World Championships in Forde, Norway. The final tally of world records on the day was 16 – one junior and 15 senior. Ri Suk (PRK) Ri Suk broke records with four of her six good lifts at 63kg, in which she finished a long way clear of Canada’s double Olympic medallist Maude Charron. PRK will complete a five-from-five full house in the women’s events if Song Kuk Hyang wins at 69kg on Monday, which she is expected to do. Albert Delos Santos from the Philippines got the ball rolling with a junior world record in the 71kg afternoon B Group, and the real excitement came in the last 10 lifts of the evening. He Yueji from China had bombed out in snatch at the 2023 World Championships, his last international competition before today. This time he broke the snatch world record twice, following up with two more records on total when he went five from six. But by the end he was hanging on to third place. When he missed his final attempt on 188, finishing 160-184-344, four men still had a chance to overtake 23-year-old He. Two of them did it – first Masanori Miyamoto from Japan and then Weeraphon Wichuma from Thailand, who moved into the lead and stayed there. Weeraphon Wichuma (THA) The totals of the top five finishers were 346kg, 345kg, 344kg, 343kg and 342kg. The world record breakers who will not appear on the official lists, because their records did not last until the end of the session, were China’s He on total, Yusuf Fehmi Genc from Turkiye in clean and jerk, and Miyamoto in clean and jerk and total. Wichuma, backed by a sizeable group of Thais who have settled locally, as well as his team-mates, made four good lifts for 152-194-346. Miyamoto, who was distraught after failing with his final attempt on 195kg, made 152-193-345. Genc may rue the decision to go for 192kg on his final attempt, which gave him the lead in clean and jerk and second place behind He, but only for a few minutes. Genc finished fourth. Masanori Miyamoto (JPN) Ri Won Ju from PRK appeared to hurt his right knee when he missed his first clean and jerk on 190kg. He was clearly in pain after making it next time, but came back for more and was desperately close to a remarkable victory. Ri got 195kg above his head but lost his balance backwards and what might have been first place became fifth. Sebastian Olivares, the 20-year-old Colombian who had set the clean and jerk world record at the Pan American Championships in July, was injured when he dropped the barbell on his first snatch attempt. He was taken to hospital but was said to be recovering well. For 19-year-old Delos Santos, who won youth and junior world titles at lighter weights, his appearance in the B Group was his first in a senior competition. What a start he made, topping the group with a junior world record in clean and jerk on 137-185-322 to finish eighth overall. In the back room the IWF president Mohammed Jalood was among the many well-wishers who congratulated Delos Santos and posed for photos with him. Albert Delos Santos (PHI) The teenager, who is in the second year of studying for a business degree, had been telling everyone he would make 185kg. “Promising to get a world record makes me sound cocky, which I’m not, but that was pretty special,” he said. “My big target here was making the top ten and hitting that 185. “There’s plenty more improvement in me, and I know I need to find 15 kilos more in snatch. But things are going well. Now I have to go straight into preparing for the next big competition, the South East Asia Games in Thailand in two months.” Asked which he would choose from a good business career or an Olympic medal, he replied, “Let’s go both.” Ri finished 17kg clear of Charron, the Tokyo Olympic champion and Paris silver medallist, and 22kg ahead of third-placed Yenny Sinisterra from Colombia. She broke the snatch world record with her third lift, then posted clean and jerk and total world records with her next three, finishing 111-142-253. Ri still has a way to go to match the “old” 63kg world record of 262kg set by the great Deng Wei from China in 2016. The category was in use from 1998 to 2018, but current world records must be set from June 1 this year when the categories changed. Maude Charron (CAN) Charron, 10 years older than Ri at 32, was delighted with her performance. It was the first time she bettered 130kg in clean and jerk, a target that had “become a bit of a mental barrier”. She did it twice, making 131kg to take the lead, then 133kg, after which she glanced at her coaching team with a ‘What about that?’ look. “I finally got past 130kg – it must be the Norwegian air,” Charron said. “I really wanted to do well here because I love this place.” Charron has been twice, to a test event and a training camp before the World Championships. “It’s a beautiful place. I’ve brought my hiking boots and I’ll be using them tomorrow… if I can still walk!” Charron made 103-133-236, equalling her career-best total made at 59kg. Sinisterra finished 103-128-231, the same total as clean and jerk bronze medallist Elreen Ando from the Philippines, who was fourth because she got there after Sinisterra. Two closely-matched Americans were fifth and sixth, Sophia Shaft on 101-126-227 from her two good lifts, and Katie Estep on 98-125-223 from three. By Brian Oliver Photos by Giorgio
