Double happiness for China lifters
Print Edition
WITH weightlifting once again hit by a doping scandal, China won two Olympic gold medals in the sport on Tuesday.
Deng Wei and Shi Zhiyong won their events hours after one of the top female lifters, Lin Tzu-Chi of Chinese Taipei, was forced to withdraw from the competition because of an abnormal doping test.
Deng won the women’s 63-kilogram category, setting a world record total of 262kg. The previous record holder was Lin.
“Because this is my first Olympic Games, I was quite nervous,” Deng said. “But I set my goal to break the world record before coming to Rio, so this is actually within my expectations.”
The China Post said that Lin had tested positive for a banned substance just hours before the start of the contest, citing officials at its Olympic committee.
Later in the day, Shi continued China’s success by winning the men’s 69kg class.
In addition to Lin’s withdrawal, the International Olympic Committee disqualified two lifters from past Olympics for positive retests of samples from the 2008 and 2012 Games. One is from Turkey and the other from Armenia, but neither won a medal.
That followed months of scandals in the sport which depleted the field for the women’s 63kg. Defending champion Maiya Maneza of Kazakhstan missed the Olympics after failing a drug test, while two of the top four from last year’s world championships were also out for doping-related reasons.
Deng took advantage, hoisting 147kg in the clean and jerk and 115kg in the snatch for her world-record total of 262kg. Deng’s clean and jerk lift also broke her own record by 1kg.
Choe Hyo Sim of North Korea took silver and Karina Goricheva of Kazakhstan earned bronze.
Shi won the other gold for China by lifting 162kg in the snatch and 190kg in the clean and jerk for a total of 352kg.
Shi, who shares his name with another Olympic champion Chinese weightlifter, said the older Shi Zhiyong pushed him on to victory. “‘You must deserve this name, respect this name’,” Shi said he was told. “That encouraged me.”
Daniyar Ismayilov of Turkey, who used to represent Turkmenistan, won silver, with Izzat Artykov of Kyrgyzstan taking bronze.
The older Shi, 36, won the 62kg title at the 2004 Athens Games to become a national hero and is now a government official.
The new Shi, a 22-year-old reigning world champion, was born Shi Lei but his coach had another suggestion.
“I was still young when I left my family to train and my coach gave me the new name. I did not know about the 2004 Olympics at that time,” he said.
“As I grew up I learned all about Shi Zhiyong and I am proud to say we met a few years ago.
“The name means wisdom and courage, and Shi told me that as I had his name I must never give up, and I should become a champion like him.
“I also owe so much to my coach, another great Olympic champion.”
That man is Zhan Xugang, who won gold at the Atlanta Games in 1996 and Sydney four years later.
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