Belarusian weightlifter Andrei Armnau retired in 2016 after a spate of injuries, but he’s training hard as he continues his comeback in the sport. Take a look at this monstrous split jerk he made from the rack: 240 kilograms, or 529.1 pounds.
The caption translates roughly as, “Tonight, a little jerk of 240 kilograms.” For context, the last Olympic record made in Aramnau’s now defunct -105kg weight class was Ruslan Nurudinov’s 237 kilograms at the Rio Olympics.
One thing we always have to mention when writing about Andrei Aramnau: did you know he was born with a sixth finger on one of his hands? And he had to cut it off in order to be allowed to compete in weightlifting? You can read our full article on Andrei Armnau’s sixth finger —at age 14, he was told that he couldn’t train for the European Championships unless he had the finger, which was fully functional, removed. The reasoning he was told was that, “If I had four hands, it would be easier for me to win, and that would be unfair.”
So the finger came off and the young athlete went on to went on to win gold at the 2007 World Weightlifting Championships in Chiang Mai (his total was 423 kilograms) and he won gold the next year in Beijing with what were two world records: a 200-kilogram snatch and a 436-kilogram total.
He also won gold at the 2010 European Championships but had the medals stripped due to a doping violation.
Aramnau retired in 2016 after several injuries that included a torn quad and herniated discs, but he returned to the stage at last year’s World Weightlifting Championships where he placed 9th with a 392-kilogram total. He followed up this performance with a gold medal-winning 401-kilogram total at the Qatar Cup in December.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AkG0s3HOLA
We’re unsure as to what’s next for the man: last year he said he was training for the European Games, which don’t have weightlifting, but he may have been mistranslated and meant he was training for the European Weightlifting Championships. With a jerk like this, we’re sure we’ll hear about his next performance regardless.
Featured image via @ariamnovandrei on Instagram.
