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Chinese Novice Clean Sweeps Women's 48kg at Weightlifting Worlds
Chinese women lifter Gao Wei had a clean sweep of three gold medals at the women's 48kg category in the world weightlifting championships Sunday in Antalya.
The 16-year-old student from China's Liaoning Province snatched 85kg and jerked 105kg for a winning total of 190kg.
"It is my first world championship and I couldn't say how glad I am," she said after victorious lifts.
Nigerian Blessed Udoh was second in the total at 175kg and Chen Han-tung of Chinese Taipei had the bronze at 170.
Udoh and Chen Han-tung also had the silver and bronze in the clean and jerk, at 100 and 95kg respectively.
The silver and bronze medals in the snatch went to Remigia Arcila of Venezuela and Gema Peris of Spain, at 77.5 and 75.
In both the snatch and jerk lifts, Gao Wei did not appear until all her rivals had finished their attempts. Her first attempts virtually had established her winning status in the division.
After overcoming the weight of 85kg in the snatch, she asked a world record weight of 88, but failed.
The fate repeated in the jerk, in which she lifted 105kg in her fist try. In the second and third lifts, she had 114 kilograms, 0.5 kgs more than the listed world mark which was set by Bulgarian Donka Mincheva in 1999, but the Chinese only found the barbell too heavy.
"I lifted the world record weight in the snatch in training, but I never succeeded in the world mark in jerk," said Gao.
She admitted she was a little bit nervous before the competition. "But after I stood at the platform, I was very calm,"she said.
Defending champion Mincheva withdrew from the competition in the last moment after she injured her left wrist in training.
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