Eighteen-year-old Olympic weightlifter Harrison Maurus has not only set a junior American record, his monstrous clean & jerk at the World Weightlifting Championships is a a new senior American record as well.
The -81kg athlete went 6 for 6 in Ashgabat this week, successfully executing all three of his snatches (culminating in a 157-kilogram (346.1lb) lift) and finishing with a clean & jerk of 200 kilograms (440.9lb) and a total of 357 kilograms (787lb).
All three of his clean & jerks were junior world records until they were broken by China’s Li Dayin later in that session, but he still walked away with a new senior American record in the lift and sixth place overall. Remember that this is a junior athlete competing in an international competition with the best senior athletes from around the world. This is a world class athlete.
Watch the clean & jerk below.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpzXQFSB2lH/
[Watch Maurus become the youngest American to clean & jerk 200 kilograms back in February here.]
He also uploaded the snatch portion to his Instagram, though it’s a video of a TV screen so it’s not the best quality.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpzbbUjhIy-/
He added the caption,
6 for 6 at Senior Worlds! 157kgs snatch and 200kgs CJ. 6th overall. A good day!!
The gold medal in the -81kg class went to Chinese weightlifting titan Lu Xiaojun, who set a new world record total at 34 years old, an extraordinary feat for an athlete of any age but an especially remarkable feat for someone his age. Read our recap of his 375-kilo total here.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bpzt8FflcyN/
We know that new weightlifting records don’t have quite the same definition of “surpassing previous athletes in that weight class” as they did before the very recent changes to the IWF weight classes, but USA Weightlifting’s senior record standard in Maurus’ weight -81kg class was sitting at 163kg for the snatch and 199kg for the clean & jerk until this week. Expect his name on USA Weightlifting’s record list for some time to come.
Featured image via @usa_weightlifting on Instagram.
