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The triumph of Kianoush Rostami

The men’s 85kg category looks likely to be one of the highlights of next year’s IWF World Championships and the Rio 2016 Olympic Games after a thrilling contest in Almaty, Kazakhstan last night. There was a first title of the 2014 IWF World Championships for Iran and three impressive performances by lifters aged 20 and 21 from China and Russia. The Bulgarian, Ivan Markov, also contributed to the excitement and would have won but for his only failure of the night with his sixth lift. The eventual winner, Kianoush Rostami, made a mess of his first lift in the clean-and-jerk. As the clock ticked down below 10 seconds he was still tightening his belt, and when he got the bar above his head he could not control it. Rostami ended up with his back to the judges and still got the verdict from one of them but two red lights signified a no-lift. Rostami failed with his second attempt too and had to make his third to go into the lead. He looked as if he had lost control of the 213kg above his head, but steadied himself and cheekily asked the judges if it was a good lift before dropping the bar. Even then Rostami, who had finished second behind Markov in the snatch, had to wait. Markov failed at 214kg, then the 20-year-old Russian Artem Okulov went for 218kg, which would have equaled the oldest senior world record in the book, set in 1998 by Yong Zhang of China. Okulov failed and so, too, did the Chinese, Tao Tian, who tried to beat Zhang’s world record when he went from 205kg up to 219kg in an attempt to win a medal. He cleaned it and looked for a split-second as though he might make the lift, but just failed. Okulov took bronze in the clean-and-jerk and overall. His total of 385kg was six short of Rostami and five behind Markov, but he looks sure to improve. So, too, does his 21-year-old fellow Russian Apti Aukhadov, who would have been on the podium had he succeeded with either of his last two attempts at 213kg. “I really enjoyed the competition, and it will make me train even harder,” Okulov said. “I really appreciate the rivalry, and I’ll see you all in Rio.” Markov, too, was keen to renew rivalry, especially with Rostami. After celebrating his victory Rostami confessed he had nearly quit weightlifting two years ago because of internal conflicts. “I nearly gave up weightlifting,” he said. Rostami’s enthusiasm returned, he said, when there was a change of coaches. He said he regained his form and confidence. Rostami travelled to Kazakhstan expecting not just to win, but to break that 1998 world record. “I’m angry I didn’t get it,” he said. “But I will do it.” The snatch bronze went to Andrei Rybakou of Belarus – the first time he won anything other gold, having won nine gold medals in previous IWF World Championships. Ulugbek Alimov of Uzbekistan took the clean-and-jerk

Women’s 69kg belongs to Deng Wei

A former circus performer won a gold medal, the home crowd cheered as a Kazakh lifter came from nowhere to take a silver, and China’s Wei Deng made a sensational recovery from a poor start in an exciting women’s 63kg at the IWF World Championships. The former circus performer was Romela Begaj, from Albania. Her father was a gymnast who passed on his skills when Begaj was very young. She performed around the world in gymnastics, trampolining and other dynamic feats of skill. And at the age of eight she took up weightlifting. Begaj, coached by her husband, the former boxer Gazmend Haksan, in Tirana, had won a snatch bronze in the 2011 IWF World Championships in Paris. Here she denied Kazakhstan a gold by lifting 113kg in the snatch, edging ahead of Karina Goricheva by having the lighter bodyweight. Winning silver was still a remarkable performance by Goricheva, 21, whose opening lift of 103kg was lower than seven of her rivals. She moved up to 108, then 113, when the crowd had to be asked to keep the noise down by the announcer. “They helped me with their support, but I had to try to calm them down for the lifts,” said Goricheva, who tried archery, fencing and karate before taking up weightlifting. “It’s tougher competing on home territory, because you don’t want to let anybody down.” Begaj, 28, became the first Albanian woman to win a world championship gold medal in any Olympic sport – only a day after Daniel Godelli had been the first man to do it when he won the men’s 77kg yesterday. Albania’s football team are doing well in the qualifying programme for Euro 2016 but, said a beaming Begaj, “Everybody is talking about weightlifting back in Albania – it’s the number one sport right now. It’s live on television and in all the newspapers.” Begaj is far better at the snatch then the clean-and-jerk, and fell away to seventh place overall. Last year’s champion Tima Turieva, from Russia, looked certain to win the overall gold when she went clear with a lift of 140kg but Deng responded with 142kg and it was enough for clean-and-jerk and overall glory. Turieva failed with her attempt at 142. She was disappointed, but said, “I can do more. I will be patient.” It was a remarkable turnaround in fortunes for Deng. She failed with her first two snatch lifts on 110kg and had looked beaten. “I was very nervous before that third lift, and very happy when I made it,” she said. “After that I just relaxed.” Deng had finished second in the Asian Games six weeks ago, behind Tzu-Chi Lin, from Taipei. Last night Lin made only two good lifts and finished with a disappointing 246kg total, 6kg behind Deng and Turieva. By Brian

Albania’s first gold medal in any Olympic sport at a world championships

Albania’s Daniel Godelli won Europe’s first gold medals of the 2014 IWF World Championships in an exciting tussle for the men’s 77kg title. He failed with a world record attempt of 211kg in the clean-and-jerk, but Godelli’s total of 369kg made him Albania’s first ever gold medallist at the World Championships. It was also the first time an Albanian won a world championship title in any sport on the Olympic programme. Albania's previous best had been the silver medal by Ilirian Suli in the men's 85kg snatch in 2002. There was also a snatch bronze for Romela Begaj in 2011, in the women’s 58kg. She competes today (Thur) in the 63kg. Despite the scale of the achievement Godelli declined to attend the post-event press conference, as his team said they were unable to provide an interpreter. PRK also stayed away despite Kwan Song Kim having won gold in the clean-and-jerk, leaving only Guoshun Zhong (snatch silver, clean-and-jerk bronze, overall silver) to answer questions. Zhong, who was a junior world champion at 69kg in 2006, was selected because his more illustrious teammate and multiple champion, Liu Xiaojun, was rested after the Asian Games. China prepared two teams, one for those Games in Incheon, South Korea in September, and for these Championships in Kazakhstan. “I have been in good form over the past year or so, but I can’t beat Liu,” said Zhong, who said he was capable, in training, of 12-13kg more than his 367kg total here. He failed with two of his clean-and-jerk attempts but so did many others. There were 17 failures and only 16 good lifts in the clean-and-jerk, which Kim won with 200kg. Zhong praised Godelli as a formidable lifter, but said he believed the attempt at 211kg for the world record was too much: he was right. Godelli, 22, a Junior World champion in 2011, was also Albania’s first gold medallist in the European Championships. He won the clean-and-jerk gold in front of his home crowd in Tirana in 2013. This year he was beaten for the European title by his fellow countryman Erkand Qerimaj, who made only two good snatch lifts and did not register a total here. Kim’s gold in the clean-and-jerk takes PRK level with China on seven golds here in Almaty, with four days to go. By Brian

Women’s 58kg crowned Deng Mengrong

China’s Mengrong Deng missed a gold medal in both the snatch and the clean-and-jerk in the women’s 58kg, but won the coveted overall title at the IWF Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. It was only the second time, in the existing weight categories, that an athlete took the overall title without winning one of the other golds. The recent Asian Games champion, Jong Hwa Ri of PRK, was beaten into second place. Two Thai lifters won three medals between them: a gold, a silver and a bronze. Had they been able to combine their best efforts - a gold with 106kg in the snatch for teenager Sukanya Srisurat, and a clean-and-jerk silver on 131kg for Rattikan Gulnoi - they would have won the overall title. “We compete against each other a lot, and our totals are usually about the same,” said Gulnoi. “I think she’s Thailand’s best lifter and she thinks it’s me. I hope we can both improve.” Srisurat, 19, was surprised to take the snatch gold. Deng was successful with all her three lifts and made them look easy. But 105kg was not enough, for Srisurat made her third attempt at 106kg. Ri looked in poor form, failing twice on 103kg, and another of the favourites also struggled. Hsing-Chun Kuo, of Taipei, who won last year’s clean-and-jerk and overall golds, made only two good lifts and was 8kg or more behind the medallists. Ri improved in the clean-and-jerk, winning gold with 133kg, but she never looked likely to catch the impressive Deng, whose winning total was 235kg. Deng was asked what she was looking forward to now that she had overcome her injury to take the title. “Food,” she said. “Especially dessert.” Her favourite interests outside weightlifting, she said, were “food and shopping”. There was a fifth medallist. When Ri failed with her two attempts at 103kg in the snatch, the 19-year-old Colombian Yenny Alvarez Caicedo was left in third place on 100kg. She had great encouragement from her teammates in the crowd and gave the best smile of the night when her medal was

Who will rise in absence of big star Lu Xiaojun?

Two-times reigning champion Lu Xiaojun (CHN) will not compete in this year's men's 77kg event. He has won the men's 77kg a record three times in 2009, 2011 and 2013 at the World Championships. In addition he took the silver medal in 2010 behind Armenia's Tigran Martirosyan. At last year's World Championships he broke the world record in the Snatch (176 kilogrammes) and in the Total (380 kilogrammes), which were previously set by him at the 2012 Olympic Games. Xiaojun also holds the record for most gold (8) and most total medals (12) in this event. Daniel Godelli and Erkand Qerimaj hope to become the first Albanian athletes to win a medal at the men's 77kg. Qerimaj won the gold at the 2013 European Championships, beating compatriot Godelli based on being 20 grams lighter in personal weight, while both lifted a total of 349 kilogrammes. No Albanian lifter (both genders) has ever won a gold medal at the World Championships. Romela Begaj took bronze at the women's 58kg in 2011 and Ilirian Suli took silver at the men's 85kg in 2002. Kim Kwang Song (PRK) finished second at the 2013 World Championships and is poised to win his first gold medal in the competition. He finished on huge distance from gold medallist Lu Xiaojun: 21 kilogrammes. Before 2013, the biggest difference between gold and silver at the World Championships at the men's 77kg was eight kilogrammes (2005, 2009). The only other athlete competing in this year's event to have previously won a medal at the World Championships is Armenian Ara Khachatryan. He won gold at the men's 85kg Snatch in 2010 and two bronze at the men's 77kg Snatch and Total in 2006. Khachatryan could become the third Armenian to win a gold medal in the men's 77kg, after Tigran Martirosyan (Snatch and Total 2010) and Khachatur Kyapanaktsyan (Snatch

World Records day – 2 needed for the Gold

There were four world records, and brilliant performances by Kazakh and Chinese athletes on an exciting third day of the IWF World Championships in Almaty. The crowd at the Baluan Sholak Sports Palace in Almaty roared and cheered as their home favourite, Zulfiya Chinshanlo, won two gold medals and set two world records for Kazakhstan in the women’s 53kg. In a remarkable performance Chinshanlo won by 14kg from Shu-Ching Hsu, from Taipei, who had beaten her at the Asian Games only six weeks ago. There were two more world records in the men’s 69kg. Hui Liao of China already held the clean-and-jerk and Total best marks. He added the snatch to his collection with a lift of 166kg, beating a record that had stood since the Sydney Olympics more than 14 years ago, set by Bulgaria’s Georgi Markov. Liao then made another sensational lift in the clean-and-jerk to better his own world best in the total, finishing on 359kg. He had missed the Asian Games to prepare for these championships and it paid off. This was his third clean sweep at the World Championships: the others were in 2009 and 2013. Chinshanlo, 21, said, “I would like to thank the crowd, they made a big difference for me with their support. She also thanked her husband Ly Yongqing, who was in the audience. “He has supported me since we were childhood friends, always by my side, a good guy.” In the Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea in September, Hsu had set a world record total of 233kg. Here, she felt unwell during the warm-up and failed with three of her six lifts, registering 218kg. Chinshanlo had already won the clean-and-jerk and overall gold medals with two lifts to spare – and she broke the world record with both of them. First, she lifted 133kg to better her own world best by 1kg, then she did it again to take it to 134kg. Asked afterwards if she might have lifted 136, which would also have given her a world-record total, she said, “Not for now. That was hard enough!” She believes she can do it in future, though. Chinshanlo started feeling abdominal pain about an hour after final lift and was taken to hospital as a precautionary measure. The defending world champion Yayun Li, from China, who won all three golds in Poland last year, won all three bronzes this time. “I was pleased with my performance,” she said. “I know how strong Zulfiya is.” In the men’s event Liao failed with his second snatch attempt, unable to keep his right arm still. But he was so confident he went up 6kg to the world-record mark and made it. His nearest challenger, 12kg behind, was the Russian Oleg Chin, who dropped away in the clean-and-jerk. Youssef Mahmoud, a 24-year-old Egyptian whose father had been a national champion, took bronze in the snatch and silver in the clean-and-jerk and overall, ahead of PRK’s Chang Il Kwon. After making a successful third lift to move ahead of Kwon, Mahmoud fell to the floor in agony. He was suffering from severe muscle spasms in both legs but after treatment he was able to attend the medal ceremony. The athletes had endured days of strict dieting and hard work to bring down their weight and Liao said he was ready to celebrate with a good meal. “For five days I have barely eaten,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to some good Asian