Paris, Men 102kg: Liu Huanhua gets through weight-gain ‘torture’ to win landmark gold for China

Liu Huanhua failed with a world record attempt but won a hugely significant gold medal for China in the men’s 102kg. While China has had plenty of success in the heaviest women’s categories, Liu is his nation’s first male Olympic champion who weighs more than 100kg.

“This medal proves to the world that men’s heavyweights from China will have a presence,” said Liu, 22. “This is a breakthrough for Chinese weightlifting.”

He had to go through torture to do it, said Liu, who was more than 20kg lighter two years ago. There were other contenders in the 89kg Olympic category and Liu said his team picked him as a candidate for 102kg because he was younger, taller, fitter, and had better technique and recovery time than others.

“At the start I was comfortable because I had plenty to eat. When I got to 98 it stopped so I had to stuff a lot of things into my stomach. If I didn’t eat enough meals my weight went down.

“I had a lot of fat and had to do a lot of cardio, running and cycling. It was like torture. I was weighed every Wednesday and I called Thursday ‘Death Thursday’ because that was when I had to work so hard to lose the fat. I shed a lot of tears. It’s hard to describe the pain at the time.

“But I made it through, I could endure the training, I became powerful.”

Liu Huanhua (CHN)

Meanwhile the silver medallist Akbar Djuraev from Uzbekistan had to go the other way, cutting 25kg in 15 months. He missed his last two attempts and was so distraught at the finish, slumped on a chair with his head in his hands in the media zone, that he did not speak for about half an hour.

“It was difficult to lose so much weight, and that is why I have silver not gold,” said Djuraev, Olympic champion in Tokyo at 109kg. There is no 109kg this time and Djuraev had a spell in the super-heavyweights, weighing 127kg, before opting to go down rather than up.

“Maybe the weight categories will change again next time (Los Angeles 2028) and I will get the result,” he said.

Akbar Djuraev (UZB)

Yauheni Tsikhantsou took bronze. The Individual Neutral Athlete from Belarus was, like Djuraev, in with a chance of gold in the closing minutes but was happy to be on the podium. He had failed to make a total in Tokyo.

“This was a very beautiful day, good support from the audience,” he said, clutching his medal. “I have worked three years for this. I always believed that I would win a medal. It is for my seven-month-old son Timothy.”

Liu missed his final two attempts, including a shot at a world record on 233kg, before finishing 186-220-406. Djuraev made 185-219-404 from three good lifts, and Tsikhantsou had a four-from-six 183-219-402. The results made Karlos Nasar’s phenomenal effort in the 89s on Friday all the more impressive: he totalled 404kg.

Yauheni Tsikhantsou (AIN)

There was an early shock when Meso Hassona, the Tokyo 96kg champion, bombed out in snatch. Two others failed to make a total, and there were far more red lights than white lights on the clean and jerk scoreboard.

Garik Karapetyan from Armenia, Irakli Chkeidze from Georgia and Lesman Paredes from Bahrain, fourth, fifth and sixth, all missed twice in clean and jerk when in contention.

The only man who made all three clean and jerks was the Refugee Olympic Team member Ramiro Mora Romero, who was seventh on a very respectable 166-210-376.

Meso was close to tears as he left the arena with his left arm in a sling before the clean and jerk had begun. Meso failed with all three snatch attempts on 178kg after hurting his arm on his first attempt.

A few days before the final Paris qualifier, the IWF World Cup in Thailand in April, Meso –  who competes under his given name Fares Elbakh – suffered a hip abductor strain in the training hall. He recovered from that and had high hopes today.

“We worked so hard for this, I did my best… but bad things can happen in weightlifting,” Meso said. Asked if he would stay in competition and go for a third Olympics in 2028, he was unable to say. “Let’s speak later. I am so tired.”

Paredes, the 96kg snatch world record holder and 2022 world champion, is also thinking about his future after what was going to be his farewell. Paredes has had five surgeries, three of them during this Olympic cycle. “I’m surprised to be here,” he said. “Last year I didn’t think I would make it.

“Last month I said to myself go to the Olympics and no more, it’s done. My mind is strong but my body is not following my mind. It’s very hard to push, push, push at the highest level.

“For a few seconds I thought about leaving my shoes on the platform but the emotion on that stage was, ‘Don’t go, you should stay.’

“I loved it out there. The support from the crowd, I could really feel it. Maybe I will go for the World Championships (in Bahrain in December).”

Another casualty was Don Opeloge from Samoa. The best male lifter in Oceania qualified for Tokyo only to be thwarted when his government would not allow him to travel to Japan because of its strict Covid policy.

This time Opeloge made it on to the platform, but he failed three snatch attempts at 170kg. A third man to depart at halfway was Ahmed Abuzriba from Libya, who suffered an arm injury on his final snatch attempt and withdrew.

By Brian Oliver