Stop the presses.
It’s not super uncommon to see the world’s most elite athletes breaking their world records in training. For whatever reason, the stars may not be perfectly aligned on competition day, and an athlete can miss lifts or wind up falling short of their true potential. (Nerves can get the best of anyone.)
[Check out our guide on how weightlifters can better prepare for competition day.]
But Sohrab Moradi just blew our minds. The -94kg Iranian weightlifting phenomenon currently holds the world record in the clean & jerk with a lift of 233 kilograms (513.7 pounds) that he made at the World Weightlifting Championships this past December. He also set a new world record in the total with 417 kilograms (919.3 pounds) — relive the magic below.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcTSI7thJs5/
Just one month later Ehsan Sharif Ahmadi, a masseur for Iran’s national weightlifting team, posted a clip of Moradi training with the simple caption: “242kg.” This is Sohrab Moradi successfully cleaning, though not quite jerking, a weight that’s nine kilograms (20 pounds) over his world record. One could even argue that he successfully got the weight to extension overhead, but he didn’t manage to bring his feet together and finish the movement.
Take a look.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bduvn2JgHLM/
While this is nine kilos over his world record, we’ve also seen him successfully complete lifts that are far heavier than the record. While he didn’t quite make that 242-kilogram clean & jerk above, he did execute a lift of 240 kilograms in October, less than two months before he took the stage in Anaheim.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BagYZzahQOU/
While the weightlifter is known for his clean & jerk, his heaviest competition snatch — 185 kilograms — is just three kilograms shy of the current world record.
And while the video has been taken off of Instagram, we’ve seen him hitting 190 kilograms in the snatch during training.
The 29-year-old is no spring chicken in weightlifting, but it looks like his best performances are still to come.
Featured image via @ehsan_sharif_ahmadi on Instagram.
