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Refugee Olympic lifters: new personal bests and a lesson of life in Paris!

The importance of the moment was marked by the presence of a special spectator in the weightlifting South Paris Arena today: the IOC President Thomas Bach. The ‘moment’ was the participation of Ramiro Mora, a member of the Refugee Olympic Team, in the men’s 102kg final. Two refugee lifters were added to the IWF 120-athlete quota for these Games: Mora, originally from Cuba but presently based in the UK, and Yekta Jamali (Iran/Germany), who competed in the following session, the women’s 81kg. For Mora, his first Olympic participation will certainly remain an unforgettable milestone in his career: finishing seventh in a final of 13 competitors, the 26-year-old largely improved his personal best, making a 166kg snatch and a 210kg clean and jerk, for a total of 376kg. “This is like a dream for me. I promised my mum that I would come to the Olympics and I would have a good performance, and this is done! I am extremely happy!” Ramiro Mora Having started weightlifting at the age of 14 – “some friends of mine in Cuba were going to the gym and were getting stronger, and I wanted to be the same” – Mora left the Caribbean island in 2019 to work in a circus in Great Britain. “I was in charge of making sure the guys doing the trampolines would not finish on the floor – I am a strong guy you know…” he recalls, smiling in the mixed zone of the South Paris Arena. He is quickly spotted by British Weightlifting and receives the necessary support to pursue his weightlifting career. These efforts prove fruitful, as he becomes Britain’s national champion in 2023. “Going to Blackpool, I immediately felt that I could have better conditions to progress as an athlete. The proof is that today I am here, at the Olympic Games, doing a great result,” Mora admits. His Parisian performance is 17kg better than the result he achieved at the 2024 IWF World Cup, held in Phuket (THA) in April, where he did 162-197-359. Yekta Jamali “In the beginning, it was quite complicated. When I first asked for asylum in the UK, I couldn’t do anything – I could not work, I could not have any activity. That’s when my first coach helped me and I re-started training again…”Mora confesses. From now on, and with an additional motivation at home – his four-month-old daughter -, Mora will proceed with the training and his voluntary work as children’s coach in England. “It’s very nice to be able to motivate young kids with our example!” On a more competitive level, he adds: “I will make everything possible to represent Great Britain at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles!” In the women’s field, Jamali also performed very consistently and largely improved her personal best – she came to Paris with a total of 100-125-225 from the IWF World Cup in Thailand and left the French capital with a 103-128-231. At 19, the former Iranian lifter represented her country until 2022, and then decided to seek other opportunities in Germany, where she is actually based. As with Mora, this was also the first Olympic experience for Jamali. “Doing a new personal best in this so prestigious stage is a great motive of satisfaction!” she states, after concluding her final in the ninth position (out of 13). Jamali also spoke about the challenges she endured during her first year in Germany. “It hasn’t been easy all the time. I finally found some stability to train and concentrate on my weightlifting career. The opportunity to be here at the Games, in the Refugee Team, will also help me in the future and perhaps open the doors for more support,” Jamali concedes. At the end of her short interview with the journalists, she also hoped for more stability in the future. “If I ever get to compete for Germany, I’ll certainly be very happy,” she confesses in a quite reasonable German. By Pedro AdregaIWF

Paris, Women 81: ‘Wow! Have I won?’ Solfrid Koanda is Norway’s first female Olympic champion – without knowing it

Solfrid Koanda was so focused on her own performance that she left the platform at South Paris Arena thinking she might just have blown her chance of Olympic gold. She had no idea that she had already won even before she went out and failed with a final world record attempt. “I genuinely thought I might have let my big chance slip through my fingers,” said the 25-year-old Norwegian. “Every competition I go to, I don't look at the scoreboard. I tell my coaches, ‘Don't tell me,' because I just want to focus on every lift the same. I don’t care what the others do. “If it's my first or last attempt, I need to have the same focus. If I let my emotions in there and start to think about what the lift means, I tend to forget what I have to do. And I managed to do that quite well.” Solfrid Koanda (NOR) So well that she thought her chance might have gone. “I was excited to go back to my coaches and ask, ‘OK, what did we get? What score?’ But they just told me, ‘Turn around. You got gold.’ And I was like, ‘What, are you joking?’ That was huge!” That scoreboard showed Koanda had been 7kg clear with a lift to spare. Her failure to claim the clean and jerk world record on 162kg made no difference to the finishing order: Koanda first, Sara Samir from Egypt second and the Tokyo 76kg champion Neisi Dajomes from Ecuador third. Koanda’s coach Stian Grimseth said, “When we knew Solfrid had won we didn’t show it. We thought we might as well finish off with a world record – why not?” It was a remarkable achievement for Koanda, who had a difficult upbringing and spent much of her teenage life in foster care. She qualified as an electrician before becoming a full-time weightlifter, having taken up the sport far later than most of her fellow competitors. “Since I was little I've always loved to work hard,” she said. “I feel like I've always had a purpose, and now I feel that working hard, lifting heavy weights is my purpose. And I got to shine on that stage today and receive a gold medal around my neck.  Sara Samir (EGY) “I feel like it doesn't matter what kind of background you have. It doesn't matter if you don't have family or a mum who holds your hand to go to training.  “Whatever sport you want to do, you can still do it on your own. You just have to dig deep. I have also had many good friends around me, good support, even though it's not family.” Koanda will go into the record books as the first woman from Norway to win Olympic weightlifting gold, and the first European woman to win in a weight category above 80kg. What the results will not show is that she is, surely, the first electrician to stand on top of the podium - and possibly the first to win after competing only once before in her weight category. That was at the Grand Prix in Cuba in June last year, where Koanda totalled 266kg. She did much better today on 121-154-275, ahead of Samir on 117-151-268 and Dajomes on 122-145-267. Neisi Dajomes (ECU) Koanda competed at 87kg in all the other qualifiers, always weighing in at about 84-85kg. “That’s my training weight, and it made everything much easier,” she said. Cutting a few kilos was not too difficult. Now Koanda can look forward to a nice meal. “I’ll be having a muffin and a few sweets,” she said. Samir achieved the best result for an African woman in Olympic weightlifting, adding silver to the bronze she won at Rio 2016. Initially she had been tearful about finishing second, but later she said, “I should be proud of what I achieved. I had a back injury that stopped me improving fast enough. Really, I knew Solfrid would be sitting beside me with the gold medal. Maybe I can win in Los Angeles.” Dajomes was equally proud, not just of her efforts after she, too, battled against injury, but of becoming the first woman from Ecuador to win two Olympic medals. “My body is asking for a bit of rest now,” she said. Eileen Cikamatana from Australia failed with her last two attempts and finished fourth on 262kg. Yudelina Mejia from Dominican Republic came close to making her second clean and jerk on 150kg, which is 10kg more than her personal best, before dropping it. She was fifth on 256kg, and Kim Suhyeon from Korea was sixth on 250kg. Yekta Jamali, formerly of Iran and now a member of the Refugee Olympic Team living in Germany, had career-best numbers across the board in ninth place on 103-128-231. At 19 she looks to have a bright future. By Brian

Paris, Men 102kg: Liu Huanhua gets through weight-gain ‘torture’ to win landmark gold for China

Liu Huanhua failed with a world record attempt but won a hugely significant gold medal for China in the men’s 102kg. While China has had plenty of success in the heaviest women’s categories, Liu is his nation’s first male Olympic champion who weighs more than 100kg. “This medal proves to the world that men’s heavyweights from China will have a presence,” said Liu, 22. “This is a breakthrough for Chinese weightlifting.” He had to go through torture to do it, said Liu, who was more than 20kg lighter two years ago. There were other contenders in the 89kg Olympic category and Liu said his team picked him as a candidate for 102kg because he was younger, taller, fitter, and had better technique and recovery time than others. “At the start I was comfortable because I had plenty to eat. When I got to 98 it stopped so I had to stuff a lot of things into my stomach. If I didn’t eat enough meals my weight went down. “I had a lot of fat and had to do a lot of cardio, running and cycling. It was like torture. I was weighed every Wednesday and I called Thursday ‘Death Thursday’ because that was when I had to work so hard to lose the fat. I shed a lot of tears. It’s hard to describe the pain at the time. “But I made it through, I could endure the training, I became powerful.” Liu Huanhua (CHN) Meanwhile the silver medallist Akbar Djuraev from Uzbekistan had to go the other way, cutting 25kg in 15 months. He missed his last two attempts and was so distraught at the finish, slumped on a chair with his head in his hands in the media zone, that he did not speak for about half an hour. “It was difficult to lose so much weight, and that is why I have silver not gold,” said Djuraev, Olympic champion in Tokyo at 109kg. There is no 109kg this time and Djuraev had a spell in the super-heavyweights, weighing 127kg, before opting to go down rather than up. “Maybe the weight categories will change again next time (Los Angeles 2028) and I will get the result,” he said. Akbar Djuraev (UZB) Yauheni Tsikhantsou took bronze. The Individual Neutral Athlete from Belarus was, like Djuraev, in with a chance of gold in the closing minutes but was happy to be on the podium. He had failed to make a total in Tokyo. “This was a very beautiful day, good support from the audience,” he said, clutching his medal. “I have worked three years for this. I always believed that I would win a medal. It is for my seven-month-old son Timothy.” Liu missed his final two attempts, including a shot at a world record on 233kg, before finishing 186-220-406. Djuraev made 185-219-404 from three good lifts, and Tsikhantsou had a four-from-six 183-219-402. The results made Karlos Nasar’s phenomenal effort in the 89s on Friday all the more impressive: he totalled 404kg. Yauheni Tsikhantsou (AIN) There was an early shock when Meso Hassona, the Tokyo 96kg champion, bombed out in snatch. Two others failed to make a total, and there were far more red lights than white lights on the clean and jerk scoreboard. Garik Karapetyan from Armenia, Irakli Chkeidze from Georgia and Lesman Paredes from Bahrain, fourth, fifth and sixth, all missed twice in clean and jerk when in contention. The only man who made all three clean and jerks was the Refugee Olympic Team member Ramiro Mora Romero, who was seventh on a very respectable 166-210-376. Meso was close to tears as he left the arena with his left arm in a sling before the clean and jerk had begun. Meso failed with all three snatch attempts on 178kg after hurting his arm on his first attempt. A few days before the final Paris qualifier, the IWF World Cup in Thailand in April, Meso -  who competes under his given name Fares Elbakh - suffered a hip abductor strain in the training hall. He recovered from that and had high hopes today. “We worked so hard for this, I did my best… but bad things can happen in weightlifting,” Meso said. Asked if he would stay in competition and go for a third Olympics in 2028, he was unable to say. “Let’s speak later. I am so tired.” Paredes, the 96kg snatch world record holder and 2022 world champion, is also thinking about his future after what was going to be his farewell. Paredes has had five surgeries, three of them during this Olympic cycle. “I’m surprised to be here,” he said. “Last year I didn’t think I would make it. “Last month I said to myself go to the Olympics and no more, it’s done. My mind is strong but my body is not following my mind. It’s very hard to push, push, push at the highest level. “For a few seconds I thought about leaving my shoes on the platform but the emotion on that stage was, ‘Don’t go, you should stay.’ “I loved it out there. The support from the crowd, I could really feel it. Maybe I will go for the World Championships (in Bahrain in December).” Another casualty was Don Opeloge from Samoa. The best male lifter in Oceania qualified for Tokyo only to be thwarted when his government would not allow him to travel to Japan because of its strict Covid policy. This time Opeloge made it on to the platform, but he failed three snatch attempts at 170kg. A third man to depart at halfway was Ahmed Abuzriba from Libya, who suffered an arm injury on his final snatch attempt and withdrew. By Brian

Paris, Women 71kg: Historic gold for USA’s Reeves – and two silvers on the day for Colombia

Olivia Reeves made her mark in weightlifting history when she became the first American woman to stand on top of the podium at the Olympic Games, and the first of either gender since Chuck Vinci won in 1960. Reeves, 21, won the 71kg contest in her usual unflustered style, and with a lift to spare. She skipped off the platform after a good lift, of which there were five, and never looked anything other than a winner even though she admitted to feeling more nervous than she looked. Olivia Reeves (USA) On a night when all three medals went to Pan American athletes, Mari Leivis Sanchez from Colombia was second and Angie Palacios from Ecuador third. Yeison Lopez had finished second in the earlier men’s 89kg, so Colombia ended the day with two silver medals. Reeves had said before Paris that the Olympic Games was “just like any other weightlifting competition”. Did she go on to the platform with that mindset? “Yes, and then I got more nervous than all the others so it didn’t really work but, you know, I tried. The weight of this competition is different, the vibe. I knew I was going to cry on the podium.” The medallists missed only two lifts between them, while there were plenty of red lights further down the scoreboard. Reeves finished on 117-145-262. When Sanchez made her final attempt she moved from third to second on 112-145-257, with Palacios on a six-from-six 116-140-256. Mari Leivis Sanchez (COL) Reeves had already won when she missed her final attempt at 150kg. “That one haunts me because I’ve done 150 before and I knew I could do it,” she said. “I wish I’d taken an extra breath.” She is a full-time student at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. Being Olympic champion in the host nation of the next Olympic Games might disrupt her plans. Asked about that, Reeves said, “I’ve no idea about it, other than my next competition is Bahrain (the World Championships in December) and I hope to be well prepared for that one. World record prepared! “I hope this can inspire any young girl who wants to do this. I think to be a representative in this sport means a lot, and I’m proud to have that role.” She will be back at the South Paris Arena to cheer team-mates Wes Kitts and Mary Theisen Lappen at the weekend. Then Reeves will take a break in France with her family, who were in the auditorium to see her win. Reeves is the second American woman to win but the first, Tara Nott Cunningham, did not receive a gold medal at the ceremony in 2000. She was promoted from silver three days later after a doping disqualification. Sanchez, who missed Tokyo because she was pregnant, said, “My mother convinced me and supported me for this. She told me to reach for the stars. “Because of her I had faith and conviction, I’ve always been sure that I could have this result. Now I can give my son a better life. It makes me so happy and proud.” Angie Palacios (ECU) Palacios also mentioned the support of her family, throughout her career and in Paris. “I felt at home with my family here. They know how much I’ve fought for this medal, they are part of it.” The Romanian Loredana Toma, a multiple world and European champion, failed with all three clean and jerk attempts after sitting third in snatch on 115kg. Vanessa Sarno from the Philippines, another with medal hopes, had already bombed out after missing all three snatch attempts at 100kg. Marie Fegue put up a good fight for the host nation and had an outside chance of a medal after Toma and Sarno departed, but she made only two good lifts for 110-133-243. Fegue was fifth, a place behind Siuzanna Valodzka, the Individual Neutral Athlete from Belarus on 111-135-246. Joy Eze from Nigeria, who made five good lifts for a total of 232kg in seventh place, signified her retirement by removing her shoes on the platform. The 20-year-old has stated her intent to “become a superstar” in WWE wrestling. By Brian

Paris, Men 89kg: Karlos Nasar smashes world records to take gold and become weightlifting’s flag-bearer for the future

Karlos Nasar is unstoppable. The 20-year-old Bulgarian broke two world records – one of them by 8kg - in putting on the best show of the week on the Paris 2024 weightlifting platform.   In winning 89kg gold he boosted his own profile to a new level, and raised awareness of weightlifting as his spectacular triumph was broadcast live in all parts of the world. He showed that he can be the superstar of the sport in the years to come. “I am not the only symbol of a new future and a new image for weightlifting, there are others besides me who can do this, but yes I am happy to promote the sport,” Nasar said after posing for dozens of photos with fans who included Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev. Karlos Nasar (BUL) “The Olympic Games is a great forum. It’s like space for me. I feel like I’m on Mars.” Nasar was Europe’s first winner at these Games and the first Olympic champion for Bulgaria, formerly the sport’s top-achieving nation, in 20 years. He was too young to feature at the last Olympic Games in Tokyo because he was under the minimum age of 15 when qualifying began. “Yes, I was too young, but I was ready to win,” he said. “Just after the Tokyo Olympics I had a better result than the gold medallist there.” That was when he won the 81kg senior world title aged 17 in December 2021, totalling 9kg more than Lu Xiaojun had made in winning Olympic gold four months earlier. Nasar looked unbeatable from the moment he walked out for his first attempt. Bulgarian fans were on their feet and waving flags in all parts of the South Paris Arena when he easily made his opener on 173kg. When he followed up on 177kg and 180kg he was already ahead of his biggest rival Yeison Lopez from Colombia, the snatch world record holder who finished second on total, 14kg behind Nasar. “This medal is a dream come true,” Lopez said. “I didn’t think I could compete today because three weeks ago I had a back injury. But with a lot of perseverance, I’m here.” Yeison Lopez (COL) Antonino Pizzolato from Italy took bronze in dramatic fashion when the jury overturned a unanimous no-lift decision by the referees on his final attempt. That decision relegated Marin Robu from Moldova to fourth place. Robu failed with a challenge when his own final attempt was ruled a no-lift and was unhappy with both jury decisions. Pizzolato has made a total of four good lifts in two Olympic Games, in Tokyo and Paris, and that has been enough for two bronze medals. This time Pizzolato had to wait while athletes from Korea, Armenia and Iran tried, and failed, to overtake him. None of those three – Yu Dongju, Andranik Karapetyan and Mir Mostafa – could cope with big jumps on their final clean and jerk attempts. Nasar made it look easy. Antonino Pizzolato (ITA) He started on 213kg, then went straight up to 224kg to better his own world record by 1kg in clean and jerk and smash Li Dayin’s total world record by 8kg. He declined his final attempt. Nasar, who weighed in at 88.4kg, finished 180-224-404, Lopez 180-210-390 and Pizzolato 172-212-384. Nasar appeared to pause after the clean and smile before making the jerk that earned the biggest cheer of the week. “I don’t remember every moment of what happens on the platform,” he said when asked about it.   He declined to say how much he had been lifting in training, but responded to a question about a tattoo on his arm which says, “You Lost.” “It’s for my opponents, not for me,” he said. In May last year, Nasar was badly injured in a freak accident that might have ended his Olympic hopes. When a sink fell and a shard sliced into his achilles tendon, Nasar had emergency surgery and told a TV interviewer, “The back of my leg is all cut off.” Doctors said he would be out of action for six months. “It was very difficult because I couldn’t move for a month,” he said. “But I could still dream, and I did believe that I would win at the Olympic Games. My message to children everywhere is to follow your dreams, because you can make them come true.” Below the podium, Robu totalled 383kg in fourth, followed by Mir Mostafa, Yu and Karapetyan all in the low 370s. Boady Santavy from Canada, fourth at 96kg in Tokyo, had an injury-plagued preparation and failed to make a total, but he aims to try for a third Olympic Games in 2028. Like Nasar, Santavy is hoping that the weight categories will change and “there will be something around 95 kilos”. Kyle Bruce from Australia finished 10th, a long way behind Nasar but was delighted to have featured in a memorable session – and to have trained with Nasar in the morning. “Even being on the platform with the world record holder was awesome,” he said. “It’s important for Australian weightlifting to have athletes involved in events like this. It would be great to line up alongside Karlos Nasar again.” Another who was pleased to be involved was the man chosen to conduct the traditional trois coups ceremony that opened proceedings, as it has done at every medal event in Paris. Appropriately for a session that will go down in weightlifting history, it was weightlifting’s most decorated Olympic medallist Pyrros Dimas. By Brian

Paris, Men 73kg: Rizki takes gold for Indonesia as tearful Shi Zhiyong bombs out after building 10kg lead

Shi Zhiyong was on the way to joining the ranks of the greatest weightlifters in history when he led by 10kg halfway through an exciting 73kg contest. But China’s double Olympic champion failed with all three clean and jerk attempts and Rizki Juniansyah claimed gold for Indonesia. Weeraphon Wichuma maintained Thailand’s run of success by taking silver, the third medal in two days for his nation. Bozhidar Andreev from Bulgaria was especially pleased to finish third, keeping a promise he made to himself to honour family members and a close friend who had passed away by winning an Olympic medal. Rizki Juniansyah (INA) Rizki, 21, caused a huge upset when he outperformed team-mate and multiple world record holder Rahmat Erwin at the World Cup in April to earn his place in Paris. That was “a do or die situation” said Rizki, and it gave him belief that he could do it again at the South Paris Arena. “You saw me crying because it was such a beautiful, emotional experience,” he said afterwards. “I owe so much to my family. My dad (a former weightlifter who competed in the South East Asian Games) taught me how to clean and jerk. My brother-in-law is my coach. “And my mother is everything to me. It has been a ritual for me that before every competition, I wash my mother's hands and feet and drink the water. I have been successful every time I do that.” His brother-in-law is the double Olympic medallist Triyatno, who became his coach two years ago. Triyatno helped Rizki through a difficult recovery period after he had to take a break from qualifying to have appendix surgery 10 months ago. “You cannot put enough importance on training,” Rizki said. He declined his final attempt after making 155-199-354, ahead of Wichuma on 148-198-346 and Andreev on a six-from-six 154-190-344. That 155kg was 9kg down on his best snatch at the World Cup, and was 10kg lower than Shi. Weeraphon Wichuma (THA) Shi had said before the competition that he felt able to make only one clean and jerk because a back injury was so painful. He tried three times at 191kg, the weight he lifted in his one successful attempt at the World Cup in Thailand in April, and missed all three. The 30-year-old had an 862-day absence from international competition because of that injury, sustained at the Chinese National Games a few months after he won his second Olympic gold in 2021. Shi recovered well enough to take a shot at a third Olympic title – only four men have ever won three times – and broke down in tears when he tried to explain his feelings to the media after his bombout. “My lower back injury is severe,” Shi said. “I've lost count of how many times I've had acupuncture or gone to the hospital for magnetic resonance imaging. I haven't been able to train properly, and the Olympics was the only reason that kept me going. “Doctors advised me to have a surgery, but I refused because that would cost me my chance to compete in the Olympics. I chose to endure the physical and mental torment until today.” On his clean and jerk efforts he said, “I was a bit anxious during the first attempt, which led to the failure; the second left me feeling a bit lost. By the third attempt, I tried my best to lift it, but I felt like my adductor muscle had torn. My leg was in so much pain that I couldn't hold on. “I want to give myself a break. I hope that in the next stage of my life, I can spend more time with my family.” Wichuma, who took Rizki’s junior world record in clean and jerk, will be 20 on Saturday. He said, “I thought I might win a medal next time, at Los Angeles 2028, but I didn’t expect this and I am very proud. This is my birthday present.” Bozhidar Andreev (BUL) Andreev lost his father, one of his brothers and the daughter of his first coach “who I consider an older sister” in the three years since he finished fifth at this weight in Tokyo. “I felt obligated to win a medal for them,” he said. Andreev, like the Colombian Luis Mosquera, earned extra cheers from the crowd by performing a backflip before he left the platform. “I always do it after a good performance,” he said. He had a nervous wait for his medal. Four men had a chance to knock Andreev out of the top three but they all failed – Furkan Ozbek from Turkey, Masanori Miyamoto from Japan, Bak Joohyo from Korea and the Tokyo silver medallist Julio Mayora from Venezuela. By Brian