We’re just about three weeks away from the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championships, and one athlete who’s looking ready is -96kg Kazakh weightlifter, Ilya Ilyin.
Ilyin showed off on his Instagram a huge 180kg block snatch, his heaviest of the year. He made in Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan.
The IWF World Championships will take place from September 18th to the 27th in Pattaya, Thailand, and Ilyin is one of the athletes set to compete. This is a gold level qualifying event, which means that this competition is a major step towards qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games requires athletes to compete six times at IWF-approved events during the 18-month qualification period.
[Check out Team USA’s roster for the IWF World Championships]
Ilya Ilyin is in the midst of a much anticipated comeback after finishing out a two-year suspension from the sport, which he was dealt after testing positive for banned performance enhancing drugs. This suspension also stripped him of his Olympic gold medals from the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games, which included a world and Olympic record clean & jerk of 233kg made at the 2012 Games. The lift, his total, and the record have since been nullified.
He has been eligible to compete internationally since June 10, 2018, however despite this he did not compete at last year’s IWF World Championships.
But he’s been training hard. Weightlifting House has been tracking Ilyin’s comeback season and they’ve put his best lifts of the year at a snatch of 170 kg in February, and a 190 kg clean & jerk in February.
Check out that clean & jerk below:
We’re excited to see Ilyin’s lifts in Thailand in the upcoming weeks. It’s too soon to tell which athletes will be competing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, however Ilyin has made it clear on his social media accounts that he’s after that Olympic comeback. His bio reads:
Goal: Win the Olympic Games
With this goal in mind, and a stellar block snatch, we’re looking forward to seeing how he positions himself in the coming months.
Featured image from @ilyailyinforever Instagram page.
