Riyadh, Day 4: Photo Gallery
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Riyadh, Day 4: Chen prospers for China while others fail – and Irawan takes silver from B Group
China won gold for the third day in a row when Chen Lijun finished well ahead of everybody else in the men’s 67kg at the IWF World Championships in Riyadh. Chen made five from five for 153-180-333 and declined his final attempt. Meanwhile everybody else saw red lights – 40 of them compared to 20 whites between the 10 other lifters, none of whom made more than three from six. Chen Lijun (CHN) Three failed to make a total, Chen’s team-mate He Yueji and Ferdi Hardal from Turkey in the snatch, and Goga Chkheidze from Georgia in clean and jerk. That left the way clear for the Indonesian Eko Yuli Irawan to finish second from the B Group on 146-175-321, clear of third-placed Gor Sahakyan by 9kg. Defending world champion Francisco Mosquera from Colombia was fourth on total, making 135-176-311 from his two good lifts. He took silver in clean and jerk, ahead of the Korean Lee Sangyeon also on 176kg after a 130kg snatch. Francisco Mosquera (COL) Irawan, who is on course to become the first weightlifter in history to win a medal at five Olympic Games, equalled his career-best total at this weight in the B Group. He looked very pleased with his 146-175-321, the same total he made in winning at the IWF Grand Prix in Cuba in June. It might have been even better for Irawan, who missed his final attempt in the snatch at 150kg after making a career-best 146kg, and also failed with his final clean and jerk at 181kg. The Armenian 20-year-old Sahakyan, who won the European title in his homeland in April on 320kg, was third behind Chen and Irawan in snatch and finished 142-170-312. Gor Sahakyan (ARM) An Olympic gold medallist and an African champion added a touch of quality to the earlier women’s 55kg C Group. Kuo Hsing-Chun from Chinese Taipei made a six-from-six 101-130-231 and could become the second C Group medallist of the week here, after Aniq Kasdan achieved the feat in the men’s 61kg. Kuo was well short of her world records – she holds all three at this weight – but was more than pleased with her performance after her preparations were disrupted by injury. Asked if it was her first career win in a C Group, five-times world champion Kuo laughed and explained why she had made such a low entry total of 210kg. “I have been injured and was not doing much training two months ago. “I got up to 90 in snatch and 120 in clean and jerk and I told my coach I should open lower here. “It worked, because today’s performance was great, my first six-from-six this year. I’m very happy. “I will be working really hard in the next few weeks before I go to Hangzhou.” Lee Sangyeon (KOR) That will be for the Asian Games, where weightlifting starts on September 30. Kuo won in the old 58kg category at the last Asian Games in Indonesia. Kuo’s 231kg was only 1kg lower than her best effort in qualifying for Paris 2024, despite her recent fitness problems. Two other totals in the C Group were high enough to make the top 10 in qualifying, Rafiatu Lawal’s 100-125-225 and Anyelin Venegas’s 95-124-219. The Nigerian Lawal sped through her lifts, missing only the last one and improving by 8kg her career best, which she had set in winning the African title in May. It was still not enough for Lawal and she was almost in tears as she left the platform after missing her final attempt. “I wanted more,” she said. “I’ve improved my clean and jerk and I know I can do better.” Lawal had trained hard alongside her team-mate Adijat Olarinoye, who also lifted in the C Group and made a career best 95-120-215. Both won Commonwealth Games gold last year, Lawal at 59kg and Olarinoye at 55kg. “They push each other in training, they are both hungry to qualify,” said coach Aduche Ojadi, a double Olympian. Venegas, from Venezuela, had made totals between 208kg and 212kg in all of her seven competitions in the past four years but this time she was much higher on 219kg despite missing three times. That would have put her ninth in qualifying, although with two sessions to come there will be plenty more changes. The rankings will be updated a few days after the end of these Championships. By Brian Oliver, Inside the Games Photos by Giorgio
Irawan (INA) is ready for a fifth Olympic medal!
At 34, Eko Yuli Irawan is an Indonesian hero and for sure one of the most successful lifters in history. He has no Olympic gold, but one medal in each of the four Games he entered. If he qualifies for Paris (it won’t be very difficult in his case), and if he reaches the podium in the French capital, he will be the only athlete in this sport to have medalled in five editions of the Olympic showcase. On the fourth day of the IWF World Championships in Riyadh, Irawan, competing in the 67kg, was largely better than the rest of the field in the… B session. With a total of 146-175-321 (equalling his personal best in this category), he ended up getting two silver medals in this event (snatch and total). Irawan started his international career in 2006, when he got the silver at the IWF World Junior Championships, in the 56kg category. His total at the time: 269kg. He progressed quite quickly, and two years later, at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing (CHN), he got the bronze in 288kg. And the achievements go on, with successful appearances in London 2012 (also third, with 317kg, this time in the 62kg), Rio 2016 (silver, 312kg), and Tokyo 2020ne (runner-up in the 61kg, with 302kg). Between these highlights, the Indonesian lifter has also amassed several medals at the World and continental level. At the IWF showcase, his only victory came in 2018, when he lifted 143-174-317 in the 61kg. Going to Paris, Irawan appears twice in the Olympic ranking, both in the 61kg and 67kg category. He is clearly best in the lighter one – his “natural” weight –, where he is the third best so far (300kg, from his silver performance at the IWF Worlds in Bogota), after China’s Li (314kg) and Italy’s Massidda (302kg, at yesterday’s final of the event in Riyadh). In the 67kg, he equalled his best of 321kg, which is clearly not enough to guarantee the presence in the top-10 (the cut is at 332kg). After his final lift in Saudi Arabia, he was obviously satisfied with the outcome, but clarified that he will be back to the 61kg category, most “probably in time for the IWF Grand Prix in Qatar, in December”. On the competition in Saudi Arabia, Irawan “enjoyed it a lot. All the conditions are perfect, the organisation is very good and the athletes feel comfortable here”. On the Olympic prospects, he is also optimistic: “I’ll of course go for the 61kg. I think the qualification is guaranteed. If I can lift 310-315 in Paris, I think I have many chances of getting a medal. It would be quite amazing and incredible. I am working hard to reach the right level and all indicators are positive. The preparation is going quite well and we remain optimistic,” he declares. Suffering from a “minor problem” in his left knee, the Indonesian star confessed that his last clean and jerk attempt at 181kg “was a bit too much – it proved too heavy for my physical condition today”. After this short interview, he came back, a couple of hours later, to the podium, after the conclusion of the A session – to collect two more medals for his outstanding collection! And the story is far from being over. By Pedro Adrega, IWF Communications Photos by Giorgio
Riyadh, Day 3: Photo Gallery
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Riyadh, Day 3: Glory for China, Italy and USA on day of drama and red lights
The Olympic champion Li Fabin claimed his third world title, Sergio Massidda hit a career high for Italy and the United States had its first male gold medallist in decades on day three of the IWF World Championships in Riyadh. There was a sea of red lights throughout the 61kg A and B sessions. Even Li was caught up in it as he missed an attempt at a snatch world record and failed with two of his clean and jerks. Li Fabin (CHN) He posted 141-167-308 to register his lowest total in a major competition since 2019, finishing 6kg ahead of Massidda on 137-165-302. Li’s team-mate Ding Hongjie was third from the B Group despite making only two good lifts for 135-166-301. The American teenager Hampton Morris was one of six athletes who failed to make a total but he compensated for three snatch failures by beating the Olympic champion in clean and jerk with a junior world record of 168kg. The C Group athlete Aniq Kasdan from Malaysia won clean and jerk bronze with 166kg and finished ninth on total. The snatch medallists were Li on 141kg, Massidda on 137kg and Shota Mishvelidze from Georgia, who totalled 297kg, third on 136kg. Hampton Morris (USA) Morris became the first male lifter from the United States to win a World Championships gold medal since Mario Martinez in 1984, when the Los Angeles Olympic Games doubled up as the World Championships. Super-heavyweight Martinez, whose coach Jim Schmitz was in the audience in Riyadh, won the snatch before finishing second on total to the Australian Dean Lukin. The top 11 places in the 61kg field of 43 included one from the D Group, one from C and three from B because so many of the leading contenders underperformed. Massidda made four from six in becoming the first European to hit the 300kg mark in this weight category, moving up to second place in the simplified ranking list for Paris 2024. “This is the high point of my career, my best moment but I can feel there is more to come,” he said. He went up 2kg from one lift to the next in both snatch and clean and jerk, while others made larger and mostly unsuccessful leaps. Sergio Massidda (ITA) Massidda was not watching while others kept failing but said of his strategy, “I tried to go up with the kilos I know, weights I am comfortable with in training. “The 300 is just the beginning, there will be more, maybe in Qatar or Turkey,” he said, looking ahead to the next qualifiers in December and February. Massidda, 21, said the atmosphere in Italy’s team was very good and that he and everybody else had prepared well for these Championships. “But there was a lot of blood!” he said, holding out his callused, gnarled hands. "I can say that for Paris I put Li in the crosshairs." Sebastiano Corbu, Italy's technical director, said, "Sergio is an athlete who manages to maintain coolness and lucidity even in conditions of great tension. Also this time he proved to be an athlete of the highest level." Finally, Antonio Urso, President of FIPE, considered, "The 61 kg is one of the most complicated categories of the men’s world championship, an important specific weight. Sergio won two very important medals that fill us with pride and improve his Olympic ranking." China now holds the top three places in the long-list Olympic rankings at 61kg, Li, Chen Lijun - who like the fourth-placed Indonesian Eko Yuli Irawan lifts here at 67kg - and Ding. He Yueji on 296kg makes it four in the top 10 for China. Ten men posted original A Group entry totals of 300kg or more, nine of whom had never been beyond the 290s in their life at this weight. Li and Massidda were the only ones who achieved the feat in the A Group. The Malaysian D Group lifter Aznil Bidin outperformed five in the A Group with a total of 290kg, only to be outdone by his 21-year-old team-mate Aniq, who made 291kg in the C Group. “Unfortunately, only one weightlifter per nation is allowed to compete in each weight category at the Olympics so they will have to compete against each other,” the Malaysian Federation secretary Wan Muhammad Hafiz had said before the Championships. The same applies to China, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Georgia and Turkey, who all have at least two with a realistic chance of qualifying. A high number of no-lifts in the A Group had been predicted a couple of hours before it happened by Simon Brandhuber from Germany, who posted a four-from-six 133-154-287 in the B Group for 13th place overall. “I thought my entry total would put me in the A Group here but perhaps the high number at 300 has worked to my advantage,” he said. “If they go high with their entry they will have to start high, and we might see a lot of red lights in the A Group like we had here in the B Group. “I had hoped for 290-292 but I’m happy with 287. I feel comfortable at this weight and I know there are more kilos in me.” Brandhuber had a better experience in Riyadh than in Bogotá, Colombia at last year’s World Championships. He had a fever five days before the Championships and tested positive for Covid. When his health improved and he was keen to lift but had to lose nearly a kilo. “I couldn’t go into the sauna with other athletes because of my Covid test so I couldn’t cut the weight and had to withdraw.” Ivan Dimov from Bulgaria moved up the rankings by improving his best qualifying total by 16kg to 293kg, while Arley Calderon from Cuba was 5kg better on 291kg. Chen Guan-Ling (TPE) There were plenty of red lights in the other medal event of the day, the women’s 55kg, as well as three B Group lifters in the top 10. Four athletes from a field of 30 failed to make a total. Chen Guan-Ling from Chinese Taipei had a sweep of golds on 91-112-203, and all three silvers went to Rohelys Galvis from Colombia on 90-11-201. Irene Borrego from Mexico was third in snatch and total on 89-110-199, and the clean and jerk bronze was won by the Colombian Rosalba Morales on 110kg. Jenly Wini from the Solomon Islands, more than double Chen’s age at 40, had an impressive 84-100-184 for 13th place from the C Group. She will be hoping for similar good form in November when Solomon Islands hosts the Pacific Games, which doubles up as the Oceania Championships and is an Olympic qualifier. Brian Oliver, Inside the Games Photos by Giorgio
Aline de Souza (WRT): historical debut for the IWF
Never before in the history of a weightlifting competition, has the acronym WRT appeared in front of an athlete’s name. It happened today, during the third day of the IWF World Championships, taking place in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. In the B session of the women’s 55kg, Aline de Souza was the first-ever lifter representing a Weightlifting Refugee Team (WRT). After the IWF decision to launch such a team in March, seven athletes are now part of this group and Souza was the first to compete under this status. Originally from Brazil, and born in June 1999, she managed a 82kg snatch, followed by a 100kg clean and jerk (her personal best is 85-100-185). “I was expecting a bit better, but I am quite happy that I managed to have a total in these World Championships, my first senior ones”. Presently living in Miami, in the United States, Souza attended a training camp for the Refugee Team in June in Sweden, and after that returned to preparation before the IWF showcase in Riyadh. “Everything went very well and I arrived here in quite good shape. My preparation ran smoothly and consistently, according to the plan we had established with my coach [Patric Bettembourg]”. Commenting on the historical moment for our International Federation, Souza can’t hide her satisfaction. “Nervous? Not so much. I was extremely happy and proud to be the first, not only for the IWF, but also in terms of our group. I felt a lot of responsibility, but also a lot of gratitude in my heart”. Asked about the atmosphere of the IWF showcase in Saudi Arabia, Souza considers that everything is “very well organised and the set-up of the venue is really beautiful”. After more than seven years without competing, she confessed taking this challenge with a lot of “emotion, as if it was the first event of my career”. But at the end of the day, she thinks that she “represented quite well the Refugee Team”. This determination will naturally continue in the future: “Always strive to lift heavier loads, so that I can progress in the world rankings”. In the late days of April, soon after the constitution of the Refugee Team, a thrilled Aline de Souza had spoken to the IWF. “Being selected to be part of this group was like a miracle! I know very well the meaning of the word and I don’t hesitate in using it: a miracle. When everything seemed dark for us, when we couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, came the news: we are part of the Refugee Team and we can again compete in the sport we cherish so much! It’s a new life for us!” Initiated in the sport when she was 11, she lastly participated at the 2015 IWF World Youth Championships (where she was second overall in the 48kg category, but won the snatch with a 73kg lift) – since then and until today’s competition, she had only lifted barbells on gyms. “For me, it was a passion that progressively got bigger as I was achieving better results”. Back then, in April, Souza had huge expectations. “My Olympic dream is getting closer… It has been a very long road… But with faith and hope, we got here. And I can tell you: each time I lift in training, I feel stronger, I want more, heavier loads. I feel blessed to have this opportunity – and this makes me more determined than ever”. Is the dream closer to reality after today’s appearance in Riyadh? Don’t miss the next episodes… By Pedro Adrega, IWF Communications Photos by Giorgio
