China and Russia split golds at weightlifting worlds

China and Russia split the two gold medals on offer as Liu Chunhong and Zarema Kasaeva won the women's 75kg and 69kg category respectively at the World Weightlifting Championships on Sunday in Doha.

European champion Zarema Kasaeva beat Liu Haixia of China to win the women's 69kg category while breaking the world record of the jerk.

Olympic champion Liu Chunhong, shifting from 69kg to 75kg after the Games, confirmed her supremacy as she beat strong challenge from Russian weightlifters to win the gold medal with a world-record-breaking result at 285kg.

European Champion Natalia Zabolotnaya of Russia and her compatriot Svetlana Podobedova challenged Liu from the very beginning of the competition, but the 20-year-old strongwoman showed her calmness to hoist 126kg in the snatch, 4kg less than Podobedova's and jerked 159kg, 4kg more than the Russians.

Both having a total result of 285kg, Liu won the gold medal due to the body weight advantage.

"My right shoulder was injured in the training last month. I just told myself to go all out in competing with Russian girls," Liu said.

"I did not feel nervous when they challenged me, but I did feel the pressure having arrived here. I competed in the National Games in October, and I was tired after that competition. I was afraid that I would not have a good result here,"she added.

Liu also smashed the jerk world records and levelled the world record with a total of 285kg, which was made by Podobedova in her sixth attempt Sunday.

Zabolotnaya, at the same age with Liu, beat the world record of snatch twice, with her last attempt in the snatch reaching 130kg.

Svetlana Podobedova followed Zabolotnaya at 279kg for the bronze.

In the women's 69kg competition, 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 pulled herself under her 157kg world record clean and jerk, for a junior and a senior world record in the last attempt, 3kg more than Liu Haixia's final lift, thus claiming the first gold medal with a total result of 275kg for Russia at the worlds.

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

Liu Haixia followed Kasaeva with a total result of 274kg for the silver medal, with Olga Kiseleva of Russia, the silver medalist European Championships, finishing third.

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

Liu's coach Ma Wenhui said that they are going to learn from the Russian weightlifters in this category.

"Russian girls will become a huge threat to China in this category in the Bejing Olympics," Ma said.

Source: Xinhua