The eighth day of competition at the IWF Weightlifting World Championships just wrapped up tonight from Pattaya, Thailand. In the women’s -81kg weight class, Jenny Arthur added two more medals to Team USA’s overall winnings.
The overall medal total for Team USA is now sitting at 8 medals, which includes Kate Nye’s World Championship in the women’s -71kg category. This has been the best female performance for Team USA since they won 8 medals at the 1991 World Championships.
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Women’s 81KG overall medalists:
- Gold – Leidy Solis (COL) 247KG
- Silver – Lidia Valentin (ESP) 246KG
- Bronze – Jenny Arthur (USA) 245KG
The women’s -81kg competition started strong before the A session group of athletes even took the platform. For context, all of the snatch medals were won by women that competed in the B session. The gold medal snatch of 111kg was completed by Jieun Lee of South Korea.
For the A session, Arthur was successful on two of her three attempts and finished with 106kg. Spain’s Lidia Valentin, the 2017 and 2018 World Champion in this category, was successful with 108kg, and Darya Naumava of Belarus lifted 109kg. Venezuela’s Dayana Chirinos and Colombia’s Leidy Solis were credited with 105kg and 106kg respectively in the competition.
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In the clean & jerk, Valentin successfully lifted all three of her attempts and finished with 134kg. Her successful 134kg third attempt put her into first place. Arthur missed her first attempt with 132kg due to a right elbow press out. Team USA coaches tried to challenge the referees’ decision, but were unsuccessful in doing so. She then increased her second attempt to 134kg and made it effortlessly. For her third, Arthur made 139kg to put her into second place overall with three athletes to go.
Naumava had two opportunities to surpass Arthur with her 138kg in the clean & jerk. However, she was unsuccessful on both attempts and Arthur secured a minimum position of fourth place. It was then Aracelis’ turn, she needed 139kg to surpass Arthur, yet was also unable to do so. Naumava and Aracelis’ misses locked Arthur into the medal podium.
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The last lift of the evening was held by Colombia’s Solis. She dug deep and completed a successful 142kg clean & jerk to secure her with her second World Championship and to surpass both Valentin and Arthur in the process.
Men’s 102KG overall medalists:
- Gold – Yauheni Tsikhantsou (BLR) 398KG
- Silver – Yunseong Jin (KOR) 397KG
- Bronze – Reza Dehdar (IRI) 245KG
Medals were also awarded in the men’s 102KG weight class where 21-year old Yauheni Tsikhantsou of Belarus won his first World Championship, improving on his fourth place finish at last year’s event. He finished with a 398KG total.
The overall silver went to South Korea’s Yunseong Jin. The Bronze medal was won by Reza Dehdar of Iran, who finished with the biggest Clean & Jerk of the session with 219KG. He proceeded to give the audience one last athletic display with a back flip on the platform.
Team USA continues their competition tomorrow, Thursday September 26th with 2019 Pan American Games champion Wes Kitts competing at 2:25AM (CST) in the 109KG B session.
Feature image from @one_kilo_Instagram page.
