China wins all six golds on 2nd day of weightlifting worlds

PATTAYA, Thailand - The 2019 International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championships continued here on Thursday with Chinese athletes winning all the six gold medals in women's 49kg and men's 61kg, and setting multiple world records at the same time.

In the women's 49kg division, two Chinese weightlifters wrapped up both the gold and silver medals by leading in both snatch and clean and jerk. In the competition of snatch, Hou Zhihui took the gold medal with a good lift of 94kg at her second attempt while Jiang Huihua came to the second place when she succeeded with a 94kg good lift at the third attempt. Ri Song Gum from DPR Korea took the bronze in snatch with 89kg.

The women's 49kg clean and jerk competition also saw the three athletes competing against each other for the medals. Both Hou and Jiang failed at their second attempts and made a good lift at the third. Jiang won the gold medal with 118kg while Hou finished second with 117kg. Ri took the bronze on 115kg.

Both Hou and Jiang broke the world record of total in the category. Right after Hou broke her own world record of total by one kilogram, Jiang set the record again on 212kg in total. Ri again won the bronze in total on 204kg.

The second day also featured the men's 61kg category. Li Fabin from China claimed all the three gold medals in the division. By setting the world record of snatch, Li came top on 145kg without any failure at all the three attempts. Winning the gold in clean and jerk on 173kg, Li also broke the record of total on 318kg.

Eko Yuli Irawan of Indonesia, last year's world champion in the category, won the silver in snatch on 140kg, and Japan's Yoichi Itokazu took the bronze in snatch on 135kg. The scores of clean and jerk came very close. The silver in clean and jerk went to Francisco Antonio Mosquera Valencia of Colombia on 172kg while China's Qin Fulin took the bronze on 171kg.

With 306kg in total, Irawan won the silver of total in the category while Mosquera Valencia took the bronze on 302kg.

After the competition, Jiang told Xinhua that she was pleased with her performance in snatch as it was as good as her level during training. Li, on the other hand, said that he was able to make the achievements under the strict training programs by his coach and expressed confidence in winning the division in the Tokyo Olympics.

The 10-day championships, running through September 27, also serves as qualifiers for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.