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Two golds for China, two world records for Deng

By Brian Oliver at Riocentro, Rio de Janeiro China’s Deng Wei broke two world records in five lifts on her way to recording the easiest win to date at the Rio Olympic Games in the women’s 63kg. A few hours later the impressive Shi Zhiyong won the men’s 69kg to make it a double and take China to the top of the weightlifting medals table. There was also a first Olympic weightlifting medal for Kyrgyzstan, a first failure for Thailand’s women’s team, and more disappointment for PR Korea. Deng Wei won with a lift to spare. She beat her own clean & jerk world record by 1kg with 147kg on her second attempt. That took her to a total of 262kg, which was 1kg better than the world record set in 2014 by Taipei’s Lin Tzu-Chi. Deng finished 14kg clear of Choe Hyo Sim, of PRK, who has stood below her on the podium at the past two IWF World Championships. It was the widest winning margin of the seven events to date. At the age of 23 Deng has plenty more championships ahead of her. “My performances were good enough to be in the team at London four years ago but another teammate was chosen ahead of me,” she said. “This was my first Olympic Games. I was nervous in the morning but I said to my coach that I could break the world record so it was within my expectation. I will continue to work hard to win more gold medals.” The bronze medal was won by Karina Goricheva, 23, from Kazakhstan. Siripuch Gulnoi, the Thai who had been expected to challenge for a medal, failed with all three clean & jerk attempts. PRK suffered more disappointment in the men’s 69kg when Kim Myong Hyok, a close fourth in the IWF World Championships, made only one good snatch lift and failed with all three clean & jerks. The glory went to Shi Zhiyong and the Kyrgyzstan’s Izzat Artykov. Shi became an Olympic champion just the like the man whose name he was given when he was a teenager. The older Shi, 36, won at 62kg in Athens in 2004 and is now a government official. The new Shi won by 1kg from Turkey’s Daniyar Ismayilov, who made six good lifts but was still beaten. The “new” Shi was born Shi Lei. He explained, “I was still young when I left my family to train and my coach gave me the new name. At that time I did not know about the 2004 Olympics. As I grew up I learned all about Shi Zhiyong and I am proud to say we met a few years ago. “The name means wisdom and courage, and Shi told me that as I had his name I must never give up, and I should become a champion like him. “I also owe so much to my coach, another great Olympic champion.” That man is Zhan Xugang, 42, who won gold at Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000. Shi, 22, the reigning world champion, held off the challenge of Ismayilov, who had finished 13th at the London Games four years ago when competing for his native Turkmenistan. He has since switched to Turkey. Artykov, whose strength has improved enormously over the years, wore a kalpak hat, part of Kyrgyz national costume, to the post-event press conference. “Do you like it?” he said. “I am proud to wear it, and this medal is great news for everyone in Kyrgyzstan.” When Artykov first competed at a major international event as a 17-year-old in 2010, at the IWF World Championships, he was in the lightest category, 56kg, and finished 23rd with a total of 225kg. At Riocentro, competing two weight categories higher, he lifted 114kg more. Artykov’s total of 339kg was well adrift of the top two. Shi totalled 352kg despite missing his last clean & jerk attempt, finishing 1kg ahead of Ismayilov.

Focus on FIGUEROA MOSQUERA Oscar Albeiro

By Brian Oliver at Rioceentro, Rio de Janeiro Even Chinese journalists and American spectators shed a tear when Oscar Figueroa, a 33-year-old Colombian who practises meditation, broke down on the stage after winning the 62kg gold medal at Riocentro. He did not stop crying for five minutes. Hundreds of noisy Colombians cheered, cried, and sang their anthem with gusto as Figueroa, a silver medallist at London 2012, triumphed in his fourth and probably last Olympic appearance. On a night of high emotion he was roared on by those fans who cheered his every attempt, as well as the failures of his main rivals. There was an especially loud cheer when the favourite, China’s Chen Lijun, withdrew injured after two failed lifts in the snatch, suffering from leg cramps. Figueroa’s meditation clearly helped because while his supporters were in a frenzy and his rivals’ challenges fell away, he remained a picture of calmness. “There’s a lot of pressure because the Colombian public have very high expectations of their weightlifters and they expect great results,” he said. “So I meditate a lot and I like to be in regular contact with nature.” Weightlifting provided Colombia with its first Olympic gold medal in any sport when Maria Urrutia won in Sydney 16 years ago. Figueroa eventually went head to head with Indonesia’s Eko Yuli Irawan, who had finished one place behind him in London. When Irawan failed with his final attempt in the clean & jerk Figueroa had won. Irawan finished second and won a medal for the third Olympics in a row, having taken bronze in London and Beijing. The cool Colombian returned to make one last, unsuccessful attempt to break his own clean & jerk Olympic record. Then the calmness disappeared. Figueroa fell to his knees in tears. He stayed there for a minute or so, then removed his shoes and placed them on the stage as a sign that he would now retire. Figueroa seemed to have second thoughts as he picked up his shoes, and he kept crying as he fell into the arms of his coaches at the side of the stage and back in the warm-down area. He confirmed as much afterwards when he said, “its 22 years since I started and now is the time to retire, which is why I removed my shoes. But I am full of emotion – it’s as though I was lifting for the whole country, and those tears were for all of Colombia. So maybe I will think again about participating in Tokyo in 2020.” Figueroa, who has two daughters, thanked his family, his coaches and his doctors. He will finish his business studies and wants to open a sports institute in his name in Cali. “I urge the President to complete the Sports Act and to guarantee a solid base for all athletes, and to build a training center, the Oscar Figueroa Centre, in Cali,” he said. His mother – “my biggest supporter” – was there to watch him triumph. Figueroa said he had experienced “two extremes in my life” at the Olympics. Having finished fifth at the 2004 Games he looked forward to Beijing in 2008 in good form. Two weeks before those Games he suffered a hand injury and he failed with all three snatch attempts. “I was so low in Beijing, and I am so high here,” he said. He underwent back surgery seven months ago to improve his mobility and recovered well. In June he was in court, convicted of false representation in a dispute with a former friend over a loan to buy a vehicle. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison but it was immediately commuted and he eventually paid a small fine. “That case was not a distraction for me,” he said. “I am not interested in bad news, I am here to celebrate. My tears were tears of

Sukanya SRISURAT (THA) W58kg

I am very happy. I never thought I could do it. This is my first time at the Olympics, so I am very happy to win a gold medal and bring it back to

FIGUEROA MOSQUERA raises bar for Colombia

By Brian Oliver at Riocentro, Rio de Janeiro Thailand’s women and the tearful Colombian Oscar Figueroa were the heroes of an emotional, exciting third day of competition at the Riocentro arena. Figueroa, cheered on by hundreds of noisy fans, won 62kg gold in the evening ahead of Indonesia’s Eko Yuli Irawan and Kazakhstan’s Farkhad Kharki. Irawan, after bronzes at Beijing and London, will return for more at Tokyo 2020, by when Figueroa, 33, is likely to have retired. Irawan, 27, said, “Silver is an improvement for me, but I know I can do better yet.” Figueroa, a silver medallist in London, broke down in tears at the finish and kept crying for five minutes. “It was as if I was lifting for the whole of Colombia,” he said. Thailand's women made it two golds and one silver from three attempts and will aim for another medal on Tuesday when their fourth and final female team member competes in the 63kg. They have been helped by the exclusion of doping cheats from other countries, but the driving force behind their success is a woman who treats the weightlifters as her own children and has negotiated lucrative sponsorship deals to fund a national performance centre and keep them in full-time training. After Sopita Tanasan’s victory in the 48kg, the opening contest of the Rio Games, Thailand followed up with a one-two in the 58kg. Sukanya Srisurat won from Pimsiri Sirikaew, with Kuo Hsing-Chun of Taipei taking the bronze. Both medallists attributed Thailand’s success to Boossaba Yodbangtoey, the president of the Thai Amateur Weightlifting Association (Tawa) whose husband, Intarat, is vice-president of Thailand’s Olympic committee and of the International Weightlifting Federation. Thailand has won five gold medals in weightlifting, all by women. They have five men in Rio but none is expected to challenge for gold. When Boossaba was asked why there was such a disparity between men and women she said, “Because the men are like teenagers, on the edge and hard to control. They want to go out and we have to get security to watch them at our training camp! “The women are mostly from poor families and they all work hard. I am so proud of them. Maybe we can win another medal tomorrow.” Siripuch Gulnoi is their final female competitor, in the 63kg. Srisurat had tested positive at a youth event just after her 16th birthday and served a two-year ban. When asked why she had doped she said she had not made the decision herself, was too young to know what she was taking and had returned to the sport as a clean athlete “because I never give up”. Boossaba said, “I have no children of my own so these girls are like my own children. I would never do anything to harm them. They have all been tested many times before coming to Rio.” Boossaba said Srisurat’s doping offence was caused by her club, not the national association. Srisurat was one of seven Thai teenagers who tested positive at youth events in 2011. There have been no positives since then. Tawa is backed by the national electricity authority for 16m bhat (about $480,000) a year for the four-year Olympic cycle. “We don’t have government support,” said Boossaba. “The power authority is our main sponsor and we have other supporters from the private sector. “I have never been a weightlifter myself – I’m management! We have a very good training centre in Chiang Mai.” The state does provide Olympic medallists with big rewards, and Srisurat will be given about 12million bhat, said Boossaba (about $330,000). “She will be rich!” There was a good performance in 11th place behind Srisurat, on 199kg, by the Marshall Islands’ first weightlifter to compete at the Olympics, 19-year-old Mathlynn Sasser. ‘Mattie’ is one of seven Marshallese children adopted by Terry Sasser and his wife Amy. Mattie, who was a good sprinter before she took up weightlifting, carried the flag at the opening ceremony. “I was so proud of that, and I enjoyed this experience,” she said. “Now there are some decisions to be made.” She has dual nationality as Terry holds an American passport as well as being Marshallese. She may go to the US to further her training. Had she been competing for the US she would have broken three national junior records in Rio. Thailand’s bronze medallist in the men’s 56kg, Sinphet Kruaithong, was unable to celebrate when he heard that his 84-year-old grandmother had died of a suspected heart attack while watching him on

Records tumble as Long beats Om at last

By Brian Oliver at Riocentre, Rio de Janeiro China suffered a rare failure in the women’s 53kg but more than made up for it when Long Qingquan broke the oldest total world record in weightlifting to beat PRK’s Om Yun-Chol in a sensational night session at Riocentro. A noisy crowd jumped and cheered as Om made his final attempt at 169kg to break the clean & jerk record at 56kg and take the lead from Long. They roared even louder when Long, the 2008 Olympic champion, hoisted 170kg with the final lift of the night to take the gold medal. He became the first weightlifter, male or female, to win titles eight years apart. Long joined Om in the elite group of seven menwho have lifted three times their own bodyweight. He beat Halil Mutlu’s world record of 305kg set at Sydney 2000 – the oldest world record for a total, having been set 10 days before Hossein Reza Zadeh’s +105kg best. Long, who totalled 307kg, also became the only man to defeat Om since the 2012 Olympic Games. After winning in London four years ago, Om had competed in seven major competitions, including three IWF World Championships, and won them all. Long, at 25 a year older than Om, had finished behind him four times. Long and Om are the only weightlifters currently able to lift three times what they weigh, and the only Asians ever to have done it. Asked if this made them the world’s strongest men Long said, “Among human being yes, we are the strongest. But not in the animal kingdom – remember how strong an ant is!” Om, smiling despite his defeat, said, “The strongest man is the one sitting next to me. I congratulate him.” Thach Kim Tuan of Vietnm had stood below Om on the podium five times and was expected to take the bronze medal, but he failed with all three clean & jerk attempts. That let in the 20-year-old Thai Kruaithong Sinphet for third place, 18kg behind Long. Four records were set in all – Long’s world and Olympic total of 307kg, his Olympic best of 170kg in the clean & jerk, and just before that Om’s 169kg Olympic best clean & jerk. In the women’s 53kg earlier, Hsu Shu-ching won a gold medal for Taipei and consigned China to a humbling defeat. She also earned a lot of prize money in the process. Hsu finished second at London 2012 but the winner, Zulfiya Chinshanlo, tested positive in a recent reanalysis of samples and is supended. Although Chinshanlo is Chinese she switched nationality to Kazakhstan, the nation with the worst doping record in weightlifting in recent years. Her title is likely to be taken from her when the legal process is complete and Hsu will be promoted to first place. “I hope that happens soon, and the silver turns to gold,” she said. Taipei rewards its Olympic medallists well and the promotion would earn Hsu about $140,000. The prize for winning in Rio would take her total Olympic earnings to around $700,000. “If I get this money it will be my pension for life, and I will give some to my family,” she said. Hsu, 25, had expected a strong challenge from China’s Li Yajun but it never happened. Li missed all three clean & jerk attempts and became only the second Chinese female weightlifter ever to fail to register a total. The first, Zhou Jun in London four years ago, was also a 53kg athlete. Hsu had suffered a string of serious injuries and did not compete for two years after the London Games. She had a cervical herniated disc, a leg injury and tendinitis. She knows plenty about injuries, as she is about to graduate in sports medicine. Because of Li’s failure Hidilyn Diaz moved from fifth after the snatch to second overall, winning a first weightlifting medal for the Philippines. Yoon Jin Hee of Korea took the bronze, but it might have gone to the 18-year-old Latvian Rebekah Koha. On her first snatch attempt Koha’s coach changed her weight by 2kg, but the clock restarted with 35seconds to go and Koha was timed out. She then made two good lifts and looked capable of more – and finished only 2kg behind Yoon. “I could have been third, but everyone is happy for me,” said Koha, whose next big championship will be the European Juniors in Israel in December. “I have learned that I must be calm and

First Olympic Champion crowned at Rio 2016

RIO DAY 1 By Brian Oliver at Riocentro, Rio de Janeiro Thailand’s Sopita Tanasan is from a family of boxers but she opted for a different sport and it paid off when she won the first weightlifting gold medal of the Rio Games, the women’s 48kg. Tanasan, 21, lifted a total of 200kg to finish 8kg clear of Indonesia’s Sri Wahyuni Agustiani, who failed with her final attempt at 115kg. Japan’s Hiromi Miyake, competing in her fourth Games, won the bronze. Thailand has won gold medals in only two sports, boxing and weightlifting. The boxing medals were all won by men and after Tanasan’s win on her Olympic debut they now have four in women’s weightlifting. “I am from a boxing family, and there was no weightlifting at my school, but I liked weightlifting and I trained with my older sister,” she said. Her father represented Thailand as an international and her grandfather was also a boxer. If Agustiani had made her 115kg clean & jerk she would have won, but it was too much. It was a nervy time for Tanasan, though she said, “I was always confident.” The silver medal for Agustiani equalled Indonesia’s best weightlifting performance at the Olympics. There was a record for the American Morghan King, who finished sixth. Her snatch of 83kg beat her  national record, which was set by Tara Nott when she won gold at Sydney 2000. China had the early favourite for the contest in Hou Zhihui, who lifted 210kg in her national championships in April, but sent her home from their training camp in Sao Paulo last week when they decided they had a better chance in the +75kg. Hou injured her knee in July and although she was making a recovery Wang Guoxin, head coach of China’s women’s team, opted instead to send for Meng Suping. He said the decision was influenced by Hou’s fitness and also by Russia’s ban from Rio for “bringing the sport into disrepute” with their doping record. Once that ban was confirmed it meant that the favourite in the +75kg, Tatiana Kashirina, would not compete. “Yes, Kashirina's absence did give us a big opportunity to win in this division, because only Meng and Kashirina have the ability to lift over 300kg in total,” Wang told Xinhua news agency. Meng arrived in Rio on Saturday. Another of Tanasan’s strongest rivals, Vietnam’s Thi Huyen Vuong, failed to register a total after three failures in the snatch. Margarita Yelisseyeva, of Kazakhstan, had finished 8kg behind Tanasan in the 53kg at the 2015 IWF World Championships but this time she was 14kg behind in fifth place. Miyake, the oldest of the 12 competitors at 30, had suffered a back injury three months ago. She did well to win a medal and said, “That was tough for me.” When asked if she would attempt a fifth Olympic appearance in her homeland at Tokyo 2020, Miyake said, “I want to enjoy this medal first, and I will think about that when I return