The 2024 International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championships in Manama, Bahrain, from Dec. 6-15, 2024, has been a cataclysm of world records. Athletes learned that new weight categories were confirmed for June 2025 and decided to let loose on the record books before they take effect.
In the lightest weight category of the competition — Women’s 45KG — Zhao Jinhong of China set the stage ablaze, scoring a new world record clean & jerk and new world record total en route to her gold medal.
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Zhao employed a squat jerk technique rather than the more common split jerk to lock out and ascend her clean & jerk world record in Manama. At no point in the video above of her lift does she seem to struggle or encounter issues moving the barbell from the floor to overhead.
Zhao’s immaculate performance featured a 113-kilogram clean & jerk and an 87-kilogram snatch for a clean 200-kilogram total. She would have completed the world record hat trick if her snatch had been a single kilogram more. However, her 87-kilogram snatch tied the world record currently held by North Korea’s Hyon Sim Won. Since the North Korean weightlifter achieved the record first, it remains in her control.
2024 IWF World Championships Results — Zhao Jinhong, 45KG
- Snatch — 87 kilograms (191.8 pounds)
- Clean & Jerk — 113 kilograms (249.1 pounds) — New World Record
- Total — 200 kilograms (441 pounds) — New World Record
Other records achieved at the 2024 IWF Championships include Men’s 89KG lifter Karlos Nasar hitting new snatch and total records, Men’s 67KG lifter Won Ju Ri’s clean & jerk record, Women’s 59KG lifter Il Gyong Kim’s new clean & jerk and total records, and Women’s 64KG lifter Suk Ri’s clean & jerk and total records.
As of Dec. 12, 2024, the only medal achieved by a lifter from the USA is Olivia Reeves’s gold medal in the 71KG class.
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Featured image: @zxz599 on Instagram
