As we speak, the world’s best junior weightlifters are going head-to-head at the 2018 IWF Junior World Championships taking place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. This year’s Championships kicked off on July 6th and run through July 14th.
Earlier today, USA Weightlifting 69kg athlete CJ Cummings took the platform in a commanding fashion. This was Cummings’ third time attending an IWF Junior World Championship, and he not only walked away with another first place finish sweeping gold, but this Championship marks a three-peat for Cummings, which is a feat few athletes have achieved in their career at the international level.
Cummings opened the competition with an easy 136kg snatch, hit 140kg for his second, and attempted 145kg for his third. Cummings wasn’t able to break any of his current Junior American Records, and missed re-breaking his Junior and Senior American snatch record.
If he had made the 145kg attempt, he would have bested his current 144kg Junior and Senior American Record for a third time this year, and it’s only July. Cummings first broke the Junior and Senior American snatch record with a 143kg lift at the Arnold Classic in March, then again with a 144kg make at the Senior Pan Am Championships in May.
For his clean & jerks, Cummings was consistent, going 3/3 and hitting what he needed to ensure a win. He finished with a 176kg clean & jerk, which earned him a 316kg total and a 7kg win over Romania’s second place Paul Dumitrascu.
In terms of his clean & jerk attempts and current American records, Cummings’ third attempt of 176kg was 9kg shy of his 185kg Junior American record set back at the 2017 IWF Youth World Championships. Yet, the focal point should be on how his consistency with squat jerks continues to improve.
In October 2017, Cummings made the switch from split jerking to squat jerking, and he had a little trouble finding consistency on the platform, but has since proven than he’s making great progress with this newly adopted jerk style.
Feature image from @liftinglife Instagram page.
