China, DPRK Split Nine Golds on Day 2 in Weightlifting Worlds

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 22, 2002

China, DPRK Split Nine Golds on Day 2 in Weightlifting Worlds

Weightlifting powerhouse China took five golds while DPR Korea collected the four other the nine titles at stake on the second day of the world championships Wednesday in Warsaw.

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Weightlifting powerhouse China took five golds while DPR Korea collected the four other the nine titles at stake on the second day of the world championships Wednesday in Warsaw.

And a world record was improved twice in one minute, which highlighted the day's competition.

Ri Song-hui of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea took the women's 53kg snatch and total golds. The Busan Asian Games champion cleared the 97.5kg in her first snatch attempt. But she failed twice with the 103kg in the last two attempts in which she challenged her own world record of 102.5kg.

Chinese Li Xuejiu broke the women's 53kg jerk world record justset by Ri, and beat Ri with bodyweight advantage to clinch the jerk title.

When Li cleared 120kg in her second jerk attempt, Ri jerked 122.5kg in her first attempt and subsequently lifted 125.5, breaking the world record of 125 set by Chinese Yang Xia at the Sydney Olympics.

Then Li, 22, decided to try 127.5kg in her third attempt and made it in three roars.

Although Ri, 24, also overcame 127.5kg in her third attempt, Litook the gold medal as she was 0.05kg lighter than Ri.

"Ri's performance had forced me to corner and I and my coach decided to fight to the end and chose the 127.5kgs, 7.5kgs heavier than my second attempt," Li said.

"The weight is around my maximum strength and I made it," she added.

Chinese strongman Le Maosheng lifted 140kg to take the men's 62kg snatch gold with bodyweight advantage.

Le, 24 and the Busan Asian Games champion, cleared the 140kg inhis first attempt but failed to overcome 142.5kg in his second and third attempts.

Greek Leonidas Sabanis and Im yong-su of DPR Korea came second and third respectively but with the same results.

The bodyweights of the top three were 61.50kg for Le, 61.60kg for Sabanis, and 61.75kg for Im.

In the jerk competition, Im upset Le, the world record holder of men's 62kg jerk, to claim the title.

Im jerked 175kg in his second attempt and Le only cleared the weight of 170kg in his first attempt, 12.5kg less than his world record of 182.5kg which was made in the Busan Asian Games in October.

Stefan Georgiev of Bulgaria lifted 172.5kg in his first attemptand followed Im as the silver medalist of the jerk in which Le finished third.

Im, 22, also clinched the title of the total with the result of315kg. Le came second with 310kg while Georgiev finished third with the same result but more bodyweight.

Wu Shude, the Chinese weightlifting team head coach, said, "Le had a bad cold recently, which affected his normal training. He was not in his best form today."

Chinese Song Zhijuan swept women's 58kg snatch, jerk and total golds without any difficulties. Song, 22, snatched 105kg and jerked 125 for a total of 230.

In her powerful snatch, Song was the last athlete stepping on the platform with the first attempt of 100kg after all the other 21 lifters produced their final results, the best of which was 97.5kg.

Song, who did not attend the Busan Asian Games in October, cleared the weight without any difficulty and subsequently lifted 105kg in her second attempt.

Song, who set the world record of 106kg in Hungary last month, added 2.5kg in her third attempt to challenge her best result but failed.

"I made a small mistake in the balance when I pushed the barbell over my head. At that time, I was too eager to break the record." Song admitted.

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