Thongsuk breaks weightlifting world records

Olympic champion Pawina Thongsuk of Thailand shifted from women's 75kg category to 63kg but still amazingly won the gold medal as she broke world records at the World Weightlifting Championships in Doha on Saturday.

Thongsuk, women's 75kg Olympic champion in Athens, lifted 116kgin the snatch and jerked 140kg to lock a winning total of 256kg, 16.5kg less than her Olympic result.

She was the only one weighed under 70kg when competing with other strongwomen in the Athen Olympic.

The 26-year-old Thongsuk also broke all three world records of snatch, jerk and the total in the category.

"I was not excited with the gold medal because I had expected to win here," Thongsuk said.

European champion Svetlana Shimkova of Russia won the silver at247kg, 12kg more than hers in the European Championships.

Thongsuk snatched 116kg in her third attempt to smash the worldrecord of 115kg made by Bulgarian Anna Batsiushka. Though failingin her last attempt in the jerk, her second attempt of 140kg stillguaranteed her to rewrite the world record of the jerk by 2kg and also the total by 9kg, made by Chinese veteran Liu Xia, who finally placed third on Saturday.

Thongsuk, a university student majoring in sports education, had not decided yet in which category she will compete in the Beijing Olympic.

"It was quite confusing and hard to choose," she said.

The 25-year-old Li Hongli of China clinched the men's 85kg goldby hoisting a total of 361kg to help China win the gold medals from six categories of eight in the worlds.

Li took the lead as he lifted 165kg in the snatch and hefted 196kg in his last attempt in the jerk. Sufyan Abbas of the host Qatar tried to beat Li by asking for 201kg in his last effort after he failed to lift 196kg in his second attempt in the jerk, but failed again.

European championship silver medalist Sebastian Dogariu of Romania finally settled for the second place at 353kg and Abbas the third at 351kg.

"I had the energy and power to make good lifts today. I did notcome back into the right path in training after the National Games,so I am very satisfied with my performance," Li told Xinhua.

"Several capable lifters competed in this category, including Sufyan Abbas and Bulgarian Georgi Markov. I don't think they performed their best in the competition, so I am really lucky."

Li's total result was 14kg less than Olympic champion Taner Sagir of Turkey's 375kg in Athens.

Source: Xinhua