European champion Zarema Kasaeva beat Liu Haixia of China to win the women's 69kg category at the World Weightlifting Championships on Sunday.

The 17-year-old Kasaeva, who lifted 265kg at European Championships, did not took the lead in the snatch as she hoisted 118kg, 2kg less than the 25-year-old strongwoman Liu Haixia.

Kasaeva then beat the world record in the clean and jerk by lifting 157kg, 3kg more than Liu Haixia's final lift, thus claiming the first gold medal for Russia at the worlds.

"I trained quite hard this year, so I succeeded," Kasaeva said after the match.

Liu Haixia lifted a total weight of 274 kg to take the silver, 24kg more than Olga Kiseleva of Russia, the silver medalist in the European Championships.

"I have done my best, the result was 9kg more than the weight I lifted in the National Games in October," Liu Haixia said.

"It was a pity that I did not win the gold medal. Two Russian girls were really great,"she added.

Ma Wenhui, Liu's coach, said that the Russian weightlifters would be strong rivals for China in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

"We are going to learn from rivals in this category. Russian girls will become a huge threat to China in this category in the Bejing Games," Ma said.

Source: Xinhua