Below-expectation performance at IWF World Cup heralds uphill battle for Chinese weightlifters in Paris 2024

PHUKET, Thailand, April 11 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese weightlifting team wrapped up its weightlifting World Cup campaign here on Wednesday on a high note, with Li Wenwen triumphing in the women's +87kg category.

Despite this success, the overall performance of the Chinese weightlifters at the tournament suggests a challenging journey ahead if they aim to replicate their Tokyo 2020 achievements - seven gold and one silver medal across eight categories - at the upcoming Paris Olympic Games.

The weightlifting schedule for Paris 2024 has been condensed, reducing the categories from 14 in Tokyo to 10. In Phuket, Chinese competitors won four categories: men's 61kg and 102kg, and women's 59kg and +87kg.

Several of Tokyo's gold medalists, such as Shen Lijun, Shi Zhiyong, and Wang Zhouyu, did not meet expectations due to prolonged injuries, weight class adjustments, or the rise of new talent. Notably, in the men's 73kg category, 20-year-old Rizki Juniansyah of Indonesia clinched the title, breaking Shi's world record.

"The performance of the men's team was below expectations," said Chinese men's team head coach Yu Jie, "First, we had a low success rate and did not perform at our level in training, and second, we need to strengthen our fighting spirit."

The World Cup in Phuket, which runs till Thursday, serves as a qualification for Paris. It's also a crucial test for the Chinese weightlifters to compete among each other for a berth to Paris, as each National Olympic Committee will only be able to qualify one athlete per weight class, and three per gender across all weight categories - down from four each at Tokyo 2020.

It was not all bad news for China in Phuket. In men's 102kg, Liu Huanhua won with a dominant fashion, as the young Chinese weightlifter eyes China's first Olympic gold medal in categories above 100kg.

"Liu Huanhua was splendid in the competition, he performed on an even higher level than in training and he had shown great fighting spirit," Yu told Xinhua.

For the women's team, Luo Shifang claimed her first world record in her victory in the women's 59kg category. "This has also been a category in which we have been dominated by opponents for many years," said Wang Guoxin, head coach of the women's team.

In women's +87kg category, Li Wenwen made a strong comeback from her injury last year and bagged all three gold medals in the snatch, in the clean and jerk and in total.

With the Paris weightlifting program to start in less than four months, the Chinese team has much to do.

"We must identify the issues that have been exposed, analyze them thoroughly and resolve them," said Yu. "It's a good thing that the problems are exposed in a major event and we could learn what could go wrong in the Olympic Games so that we can address them before the Games."