It’s been an up and down Olympics for Chinese weightlifters, with several high-profile bombouts to go with gold medal winners. Today, 63kg lifter and reigning two-time World Champion Deng Wei added another victory to China’s count, making 5 out of 5 attempts and setting new clean & jerk and total world records on her way to an easy looking win in Rio. Wei finished an impressive 14 kilograms above the second place lifter.
The final women’s 63kg podium is as follows:
1. Deng Wei (China)
2. Choe Hyo Sim (North Korea)
3. Karina Goricheva (Kazakhstan)
Wei was in control the entire competition, leading after the snatch portion and making her lifts with apparent ease. She broke her own clean & jerk world record from Houston (146kg) by successfully lifting 147kg on her second attempt. Her victory was already sealed after a successful opener with 138kg. She declined a third attempt in the clean & jerk, having already lifted a world record total of 262kg (Beating Taipei’s Tzu Chi Lin’s 261kg, set in 2014).
While we’ve seen some of Wei’s teammates struggle in Rio – Chen Lijun was a favorite going into the men’s 62kg session but withdrew after suffering leg cramps, and Li Yajun was not awarded a made clean & jerk by the judges in the women’s 53kg class — Wei looked confident in her movements, wavering just slightly on her last snatch and pausing momentarily in the bottom of her final clean. After her first few lifts, there was little doubt among spectators that she was in the driver’s seat.
North Korea’s Sim only made her opening snatch but was successful in all three clean & jerks. Sim was the bronze medalist from the 2015 World Weightlifting Championships, finishing behind Wei and Russian lifter Tima Turieva. The entire Russian weightlifting team was prohibited from competing in Rio after multiple doping violations from the Russian Weightlifting Federation.
Kazakhstan’s Goricheva took third place on a 3/6 performance that was nine kilos above the fourth place finisher, Mercedes Isabel Perez Tigrero of Colombia.
Featured image: @IWFnet on Instagram