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| December 04, 2006 | Monday | Ziqa'ad 12, 1427 |
Prolific Chen leads Chinese weightlifting charge
DOHA, Dec 3: China's dominance of the Asian Games weightlifting competition continued Sunday as an untouchable Chen Yanqing produced an astonishing triple world record-setting performance to win gold in the women's 58kg category.
In the men's 62kg category, China's double world champion Qiu Le snatched 142kg and clean and jerked 175kg for a total of 317kg and gold, just 2kg ahead of compatriot Mao Jiao, to continue the medal cleansweep.
Chen, the 27-year-old Olympic champion, set new world records in the women's snatch, clean and jerk, and overall disciplines, setting the Al-Dana venue alight in one hour of outstanding lifting.
She lifted 111kg in the snatch, beating the previous record set by compatriot Wang Li by 1kg.
Chen then entered the clean and jerk at 131kg, taking her overall total immediately to 242kg, beating the previous world record of 241kg held by compatriot Gu Wei.
She then went on to lift 137kg on her second attempt before hoisting 140kg in her final effort to beat Gu's previous record of 139kg, leaving her new world record in the aggregate at 251kg.
“Breaking world records was part of our plan coming to these Asian Games,”said Chen, who last year retired from competition before making a comeback with an eye on competing at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Chen entered the snatch at 103kg, her closest rival Wandee Kameaim of Thailand, the eventual silver memdallist, having crashed out at 98kg.
With a practically unassailable 13kg lead from the first discipline, Chen also outclassed the field in the clean and jerk, again entering at a weight (131kg) when all her rivals had bombed out.
In the men's 62kg event, there was a three-way battle between Qiu, compatriot Mao Jiao and Im Yong Su of North Korea.
Mao finished the snatch just 2kg behind Qiu, but lost his chance for gold when he took two lifts to clear 168kg in the clean and jerk.
But it did come down to the final lift of the keenly-contested competition and Qiu, exuding incredible stage confidence, made no mistake in nailing a 175kg clean and jerk for the narrow victory.
Im Yong Su took bronze with an aggregate of 300kg.
The golds won by Chen and Qiu follow the treble haul on the first day of competition on Saturday when Li Zheng won the men's 56kg category, while Wang Mingjuan and Li Ping made the most of the absence of two world record-holding compatriots to win golds in the women's 48kg and 53kg categories. — AFP
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