Only two days remain at the 2018 IWF Junior World Championships taking place in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. We’ve seen our fair share of big lifts thus far at the World Championships, but we have a good feeling we’re not finished just yet, as clearly evident from Meso Hassona’s performance yesterday.
When it comes to Hassona on the platform the best way to describe his lifting in one word would probably be: Beast. This 20 year old 94kg Qatar weightlifter has continually upped his numbers at his last three international performances and doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.
At this year’s Junior World Championships, Hassona finished with three medals consisting of two golds and a silver and hit a competition personal best on his third snatch.
To kick off the snatch, Hassona found himself going head-to-head with none other than Colombia’s Jhonatan Rivas Mosquera. Both athletes opened with successful 163kg attempts, then Hassona hit a 167kg second, and Mosquera closely one upped him with 168kg. For the third, Hassona went for 170kg (a competition PR), but was closely bested by Mosquera’s gold medal 171kg lift.
If you’re already an Hassona fan, then you probably know that where he truly excels is in the clean & jerk. After all, he did hit a 220kg clean & jerk at the 2017 IWF World Championships to take home a silver medal at a mere 19 years old.
To open on clean & jerks, Hassona opened with 205kg, which would be enough to already earn him the gold for clean & jerk and total. Mosquera hit a 197kg first, missed 202kg, then finished with 203kg. While he had the gold in the bag, Hassona didn’t finish there and successfully hit a 215kg second attempt, and then scratched on his third.
These two lifts earned Hassona a strong total of 385kg, which isn’t his best in competition, but comes very close. Keep in mind, he took a scratch on his third clean & jerk, he only needed four more kilograms to best his top competition total to date.
As the year goes on, it’s consistently exciting to watch Hassona perform and we’re pumped to see what he’s capable of doing at this year’s IWF World Championships.
Feature image from @qatarweightlifting Instagram page.