W49
This group was all about the battle between the two Chinese lifters, Hou Zhihui and Jiang Huihua, and Ri Song Gum from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. They all opened at 89 on snatch, the Chinese hitting it but the Korean missing. She also missed her third attempt, having to be content with 89 from her second. Jiang Huihua (China) ended up taking 3/3 to finish with 94, obviously hoping her strong clean and jerk would give her an edge for the total gold. Her teammate Hou Zhihui went big, hitting 94 and then having a go at 97 to extend her own world record by 2kg. Sadly, she narrowly missed it, sending it backwards.
Windy Aisah (Indonesia), aged 17, deserves a mention for breaking her own snatch youth world record with 82, even after missing her opener. She will be one to watch in future years.
Aisah continued her record-breaking form on clean and jerks, hitting 100. This extended her youth clean and jerk world record by 2 kilos and her total record by 3 kilos.
There were four lifters in contention for the clean and jerk medals. The Chinese and Korean lifters were joined in the battle by Chanu Mirabai (India). After the others all put safe openers in, RI Song Gum (DPR Korea) slipped up, missing 115. She nailed it on second attempt to put herself back in contention.
A miss from Hou Zhihui (China) at 116 gave the other athletes hope. Her teammate Jiang Huihua was the first to try to take advantage, with a 117 attempt. She blinked too, missing the jerk.
Now it was all about breaking records to claim gold. First Hou Zhihui set a new total world record (211) with a 117 clean and jerk. Then Jiang Huihua came back for her third attempt, after missing her second, to hit 118 for a 212 world record total and two gold medals.
| Snatch | Clean and Jerk | Total | |
| Gold | Hou Zhihui (China) – 94 | Jiang Huihua (China) – 118 | Jiang Huihua (China) – 212 |
| Silver | Jiang Huihua (China) – 94 | Hou Zhihui (China) – 117 | Hou Zhihui (China) – 211 |
| Bronze | RI Song Gum (DPR Korea) – 89 | RI Song Gum (DPR Korea) 115 | RI Song Gum (DPR Korea) – 204 |
M61
This group did not start well, with four consecutive missed lifts, including a bomb out from Luis Garcia Brito (DOM), before a lift was made.
The trend continued through the snatches, with lots of red on the scoreboard. Qin Fulin (CHN) bombed out with attempts at 136,136 and 138. Eko Yuli Irawan (INA) missed his opener, limiting his aspirations.
One man rose above the pack to take advantage though. Li Fabin (CHN) hit all three attempts at 138, 141 and 145 to take the snatch gold and beat the standard of 144 to set a world record.
The clean and jerks brought an interesting bit of team dynamics between the two Turkish Athletes. Ferdi Hardal made his opener at 154. Then after his teammate Hursit Atak missed 155, Hardal used his change to burn Atak’s clock, forcing him back out with just one minute’s rest. He then missed 155 twice more to bomb. These kind of tactics are not unusual in weightlifting but considering Atak had already bombed on snatches and thus was not getting Robi points from this competition, in any case, things might be slightly frosty in the Turkish team now…
There was also some jury action when a lift Luis Garcia Brito (DOM) was overturned due to his elbow touching his knee. The jury used the video playback technology to make the decision.
Garcia Brito wasn’t the only lifter to fall foul of Jury overturns. Yoichi Itokazu (JPN) and Jhon Serna Mendoza (COL) also had lifts passed by the referees but taken away by the jury. Bizarrely, the Japanese team apparently used a challenge to dispute the jury decision – pointless since they had already looked at the VPT system to draw their conclusion. The decision on the Colombian’s lift was a bit controversial as it did not appear that the video replay showed beyond doubt that elbow and knee touched.
Overall the clean and jerks went the same way as the snatches, with lots of misses. Li Fabin rose above it all again to hit a 173 kilo lift to set a new total world record of 318. He even had a go at taking Eko Irawan’s (INA) clean and jerk record but couldn’t stick the lift. Irawan himself also had an attempt to extend his record but fell short.
| Snatch | Clean and Jerk | Total | |
| Gold | Li Fabin (CHN) – 145 | Li Fabin (CHN) – 173 | Li Fabin (CHN) – 318 |
| Silver | Eko Yuli Irawan (INA) – 140 | Francisco Mosquera Valencia (COL) – 172 | Eko Yuli Irawan (INA) – 306 |
| Bronze | Yoichi Itokazu (JPN) – 135 | QIN Fulin (CHN) – 171 | Francisco Mosquera Valencia (COL) – 302 |
Records Set Today
- W49 World record total – Hou Zhihui (China) – 211 (later broken)
- W49 World record total – Jiang Huihua (China) – 212
- W49 Youth world record snatch – Windy Aisah (Indonesia) – 82
- W49 Youth world record clean and jerk – Windy Aisah (Indonesia) – 100
- W49 Youth world record total – Windy Aisah (Indonesia) – 182
- M61 World snatch record – Li Fabin (CHN) – 145
- M61 World total Record – Li Fabin (CHN) – 318