Chinese weightlifters return home with golds from worlds

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, November 26, 2003

Chinese weightlifters return home with golds from worlds

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Winding up 9 days of fierce battlein Vancouver, the Chinese strongmen and strongwomen backed to homeTuesday afternoon with 10 full spots for the Athens Olympic Games from the 2003 World Weightlifting Championships.

Asserting their supremacy in the worlds, China bade farewell tothe championships, slated for November 14-22, with 21 gold, seven silver and four bronze medals, the all-time highest of medals for the Chinese in the championships. They also won both the men's andwomen's team titles at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre.

"We have achieved our goal successfully. We had the full confidence to secure all the Olympic berths before we went to Vancouver, we still feel excited about it now," said team manager Ma Wenguang at the Beijing airport.

"Our next goal is to win at least five gold medals at the Athens Games," he added.

With this being a pre-Olympic year, all the Herculeses in the world wanted to have good performances at the worlds. The women's 69kg winner Liu Chunhong, who bettered her own world mark in five amazing times, also had the same thoughts.

"Everyone wanted to make a statement, saying 'You're going to have to do more than this next year in Athens to beat me.' That's why we saw a lot of world records at the worlds," she said.

"Vancouver was the place for us to show that we are well on track in our preparation for the Olympics," she added.

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