While he continues to serve a doping suspension from international weightlifting competition, Aleksey Lovchev has been nothing if not creative with how he spends his time. Last year he starred in a Rocky-type movie about the trials and tribulations of a working class weightlifter (watch the preview here), and recently he’s also tried his hand at feats of strength in strongman.
His latest is a lift that he describes as a Russian record in the Apollon axle clean & jerk with 210 kilograms (463 pounds).
OK, first off, everyone’s initial reaction: did he just clean 210 kilos with a mixed grip? Indeed he did, that’s an example of one of the rarest of the rare cleans in which the athlete switches grip mid clean. When it goes wrong it goes very wrong, but the man pulled it off. Plus there’s next to no whip on that bar.
Here’s a translation of the caption he included with the lift, though we should emphasize that this is just a Google translate effort.
Friends, today in the “Theater of Power” I managed to establish a new record of Russia in raising the “Apollo Axle” weighing 210kg, the previous record belonged to Mikhail Koklyaev 208kg.
Koklyaev has performed a lot of impressive feats, like a 270-kilo jerk and a one-armed snatch of 110 kilos, but we’ll always remember him for the music video he made for “Stolen Dance.”
Anyway, Lovchev is all about Apollon axles these days — the last time we wrote about him, he had managed a 200-kilo axle clean thruster, a move that’s even more rare than the axle clean & jerk.
For a brief period Lovchev held the world record in the clean & jerk with 264 kilograms until he tested positive for ipamorelin, a hormone growth drug, and the record was nullified. His suspension will end in 2019 and while he won’t be eligible to go to Tokyo, the man is certainly keeping his strength up.
Featured image via @lovchev_aleksey on Instagram.
