In April, Rizki Juniansyah made a big splash in the weightlifting world when he sniped one of Indonesia’s athlete slots from teammate Rahmat Erwin Abdullah. Juniansyah went on to win the 73-kilogram event at the 2024 Olympics.
- It’s often said that performance in the clean & jerk, one of weightlifting’s two competitive disciplines, wins or loses meets. Based on recently-released footage, Juniansyah is the second-best middleweight jerker in history.
In the months leading up to the Paris Games, Juniansyah jerked 217 kilograms, or 478.4 pounds, off blocks — a sliver under three times his own body weight. Only one weightlifter, ever, has done better.
Rizki Juniansyah: The Best Jerker in Weightlifting?
Footage of Juniansyah’s lift hit social media on Oct. 30, 2024. According to source and friend of BarBend @VintageLifts, Juniansyah’s 217 was the second-heaviest jerk ever made by any middleweight weightlifting athlete in history.
- In 1987, Bulgarian weightlifter Alexander Varbanov reportedly clean & jerked 222 kilograms while training for that year’s World Weightlifting Championships (Varbanov would get second place). He competed in the 75-kilogram class, making his lift the heaviest recorded jerk by an athlete in the sport’s middle categories.
As of Nov. 2024, the 73-kilogram clean & jerk world record is a mighty 204 kilograms. It belongs to Abdullah, whom Juniansyah dislodged from his Paris trajectory in an upset at the IWF World Cup.
[Related: Best Weightlifting Belts]
This isn’t the first time a middleweight weightlifting athlete achieved greatness thanks to a surplus of strength in the split jerk. During the Men’s 77-kilogram final at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Kazakh weightlifter Nijat Rahimov leapfrogged gold-medal favorite Lu Xiaojun.
Xiaojun finished his clean & jerks with 202 kilograms — coupled with his 177-kilogram snatch, Rahimov needed to jump from his own 202 attempt to 214 to out-Total Lu. Thanks to unbelievable strength in the split jerk, he made the lift by the skin of his teeth.
- Rahimov forfeited his medal in 2022 after failing a doping test. Silver medalist Lu and bronzer Mohamed Ehab were also “popped” for performance-enhancing drugs years later. As of 2024, the International Olympic Committee has not redistributed the 77-kilogram medals to other athletes.
[Related: Best Pre-Workout Supplements]
At the 2024 Olympics, Juniansyah found himself in a similar position; he was down by 10 kilograms in the snatches to Team China’s two-time Olympic Champion, Shi Zhiyong. Shi floundered in the jerks, but Juniansyah’s reservoir of strength carried him to the top of the podium.
After seeing Juniansyah jerk 217 — a comfortable 13-kilogram margin over his teammate’s world record — his triumph in Paris makes perfect sense.
More Weightlifting News
- Italian Stallion: Antonino Pizzolato Smashes 180KG Snatch
- World’s First Weightlifting Museum Opens in China
- Exclusive: Inside Team China’s Youth Weightlifting Industry
Featured Image: @yks.media / Instagram
