Award season is upon us! The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has released the nominees for both male and female weightlifter of the year. The winners will each receive the IWF Jenő Boskovics Lifter of the Year Trophy for 2019.
Here is the list of nominees from the IWF open voting announcement:
MEN
Om Yun-chol (PRK, -55kg)
Shi Zhiyong (CHN, -73kg)
Lu Xiaojun (CHN, -81kg)
Simon Martirosyan (ARM, -109kg)
Lasha Talakhadze (GEO, +109kg)
WOMEN
Kuo Hsing-chun (TPE), -59kg)
Deng Wei (CHN, -64kg)
Katherine Elizabeth Nye (USA, -71kg)
Rim Jong-sim (PRK, -76kg)
Leydi Yesenia Solís Arboleda (COL, -81kg)
Men’s Category
Om Yun-chol (PRK, -55kg)
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn8GBdbhymj/
Om Yun-chol of North Korea is an Olympic gold medalist from the 2012 Olympic Games in the -56kg weight class. In 2019, he won gold at the World Weightlifting Championships in the -55kg class and set the current world records for the clean & jerk (166kg/366lbs) and total (294kg/648lbs).
Shi Zhiyong (CHN, -73kg)
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2246GdnKwL/
Shi Zhiyong of China is the 2016 Olympic gold medalist in -69kg class. He is a 3-time World Weightlifting Champion and 3-time Asian Weightlifting Champion. He won both events in 2019 in the -73kg class.. He holds the current world records for the snatch (168kg/370lbs) and total (363kg/800lbs)
Lu Xiaojun (CHN, -81kg)
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp0JNYKH7CY/
Lu Xiaojun of China won Olympic gold at the 2012 Olympic Games and silver at the 2016 Olympic Games. Rahimov took gold for having the lower body weight. (The bodyweight tiebreaker has since been eliminated from weightlifting competition.)
In 2019, Xiaojun won the World Weightlifting Championships in the -81 kg class and set current world records for the clean & jerk (207kg/456lbs) and total (378kg/833lbs).
Simon Martirosyan (ARM, -109kg)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHa9GaxDf09/
Simon Martirosyan of Armenia is a 2-time and current World Weightlifting Champion and European Weightlifting Champion in the -109kg class. 2019 saw him set the current world record for the snatch (199kg/438lbs). Martirosyan also holds the current world records for the clean & jerk (230kg/507lbs) and total (435kg/959lbs).
Lasha Talakhadze (GEO, +109kg)
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2nmBRPlgAC/
Lasha Talakhadze of Georgia is the 2016 Olympic gold medalist in the +105kg class. He is the reigning 4-time European Weightlifting Champion: 3-time gold winner in the +105kg class, 2019 champion in the +109kg class. He has won the World Weightlifting Championships four times, including 2019, twice in the +105kg classs (2016 and 2017) and twice in the +109kg class (2018, 2019.
His 2019 resume also boasts a win at the International Naim Suleymanoglu Tournament.
Women’s Category
Kuo Hsing-chun (TPE, -59kg)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BvLUwRtA_FK/
Kuo Hsing-chun of Taiwan is the 3-time and current World Weightlifting Champion in the -59kg class as well as the 2019 Asian Weightlifting Champion. In 2019, she set world records for the snatch, clean & jerk, and total at the Asian Weightlifting Championships. She holds the current world records for the clean & jerk (140kg/308lbs) and total (246kg/542lbs) which she set at the 2019 World Weightlifting Championships.
Deng Wei (CHN, -64kg)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BhhAaqgh0le/
Deng Wei of China is the 2016 Olympic gold medalist in the -63kg class. She won the World Weightlifting Championships in 2014, 2015, 2018, and 2019; the year she set the current world records for the snatch (116kg/255lbs), the clean & jerk (145kg/319lbs), and total (261kg/575lbs) in the -64kg class.
2019 also saw Deng win the Asian Weightlifting Championships and the IWF World Cup. She set world records in both lifts and total in both events.
Katherine Elizabeth Nye (USA, -71kg)
https://www.instagram.com/p/B64fRe9gjuR/
2019 was a breakout year for Katherine Nye of the United States. She won both the World Weightlifting Championships and the Pan American Weightlifting Championships in the -71kg class. She also took gold at the 2019 Junior World Weightlifting Championships.
Nye took the gold in both the snatch and clean & jerk across all the events she won in 2019.
Nye also clinched the bronze at the Pan American Games.
Rim Jong-sim (PRK, -76kg)
https://www.instagram.com/p/-nC0-tEbdR/
Rim Jong-sim of North Korea is a 2-time Olympic gold medalist having won in 2012 in the -69kg class and in 2016 in the -75kg class. In 2019 she won both the World Weightlifting Championships and the Asian Weightlifting Championships in the -76kg class.
2019 was the year she set the current world records in both the snatch (124kg/273lbs) and total (278kg/613lbs).
Leydi Yesenia Solís Arboleda (COL, -81kg)
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bgl98zqllxq/
Leydi Yesenia Solís Arboleda of Colombia is the 2008 Olympic silver medalist in the -69kg class. She has won the Pan American Games twice, once each in the -61kg class -69kg class. Solís won the Pan American Championships three times all in the -69kg class. And she the World Weightlifting Championships twice; 2017 in the -69kg class and 2019 in the -81kg class.
Solís also won Grand Prix Lima in 2019 with a 251kg/533lbs total.
How to Vote
IWF shared on their site how to submit your vote for Best Male and Best Female 2019 Lifter of the Year. The procedure to submit your ballot is as follows:
- Select 1 (one) Male nominee and 1 (one) Woman nominee.
- You must give the following information along with your ballot submission:
- Name
- Country
- E-mail address
Be sure to input your information properly as any ballot that fails to meet the submission requirements will not be counted.
The submission deadline is February 10, 2020.
Featured image from the Instagram pages of Katherine Nye:@katherineenye, Kuo Hsing-chun: @kuohsingchun_official, Lasha Talakhadze: @talakhadzelasha_official, and Shi Zhiyong: @shi_zhi_yong.
