The National Games of the People’s Republic of China, a.k.a. the Chinese National Games and sometimes called the All China Games, is sometimes considered the Chinese version of the Olympics. It’s held every four years, and athletes compete in a tremendous variety of sports including swimming, fencing, gymnastics, and judo. (There are 31 sports in this year’s Games, three more than were held at the Rio Olympics.)
2017 is the year of the 13th Chinese National Games, and events are well underway in the northern coastal city of Tianjin. Right now, we’re about halfway through — the opening ceremony was on August 27th and everything wraps up September 8th — but the women’s weightlifting event has come to a close.
Here are the standout performances. Note that in the National Games of China, athletes are categorized by their province.
-48kg Weight Class: Hou Zhihui
The 19-year-old from Hunan led her weight class with a 93kg snatch:
and a clean & jerk of 115kg, totaling 208 kilograms and taking first place.
Second place went to Zeng Mei from Sichuan province, with a total of 204kg. Third went to Fujian’s Zhang Rong with 203kg.
-53kg Weight Class: Liao Qiuyun
Also hailing from Hunan, Liao took first place with a total of 222 kilograms, beating Guangdong’s Li Yajun by just one kilogram. Unfortunately, we don’t have video of the -53kg weight class.
-58kg Weight Class: Chai Lina
Chai snatched 105kg and clean & jerked 133kg for a total of 238kg.
Second place went to Hubei’s Zhou Jun with 234kg and Shaanxi’s Chen Guiming with 230kg.
-63kg Weight Class: Deng Wei
The 24-year-old Fujianese weightlifter and Rio gold medalist totaled 251 kilograms with a 113kg snatch:
And a 138kg clean & jerk:
Second went to Henan’s Long Dingling came second with a 244kg total, followed by Zhou Xiaojing’s 241kg total.
-69kg Weight Class: Xiang Yanmei
The third weightlifting gold medal to go to a Hunanese athlete, Xiang — who also won gold in Rio — pulled off a snatch of 115kg:
And a clean & jerk of 143kg:
Her total of 258kg beat out Liaoning’s Luan Yinxue’s and Shanghai’s Wu Linying, who both lifted 250kg.
-75kg Weight class: Wang Zhouyu
The first gold medal to go to a Hubei athlete, the 23-year-old snatched 120 kilograms and clean & jerked 145kg for a 265kg total. Watch the snatch below.
Shanxi’s Zhang Qian totaled 254kg, one kilogram ahead of third place finisher Zhao Chenchen from Liaoning.
+75kg Weight class: Meng Suping
The heaviest weight class in Chinese women’s weightlifting, and first place went to Meng Suping, who earned Anhui’s only weightlifting medal with a huge 142kg snatch:
And a 187kg clean & jerk:
Meng weighs somewhere around 120kg (265 pounds), which would put her in the superheavyweight division of an international competition. Second place went to Shandong’s Zhou Xiaoman with 326kg and Fujian’s Li Jiaqi with 302kg.
None of these lifts would have broken world records, but these are nonetheless phenomenal results and the Chinese National Games are a fantastic example of the quality of weightlifting we’ve come to expect from Chinese athletes.
We’ll be back with coverage of the men’s weightlifting next week.
Featured image via AllThingsGym on Facebook.
