Olympic weightlifting should have spent yesterday looking to the future in celebration of two teenage champions — instead it spent the day confronting its dark past as another doping storm blow up.
Turkey’s Taner Sagir and China’s Liu Chunhong, two 19-year-old prodigies, signaled a changing of the guard in the sport with jaw-dropping displays of strength and power to win gold medals in the men’s 77 and women’s 69 kgs respectively. But a riveting day of competition at the Nikaia weightlifting hall was overshadowed by the suspension of seven lifters for positive drug tests taken before the Games.
Sagir showed little respect for his elders, demolishing a field that included the gold and silver medallist from Sydney. He combined a lift of 172.5 kg in the snatch with 202.5 in the clean and jerk for a winning total of 375 kg.
Sergey Filimonov of Kazakhstan hoisted the silver with 372.5 kg and Oleg Perepetchenov of Russia the bronze on 365 kg. If anything, Liu managed to make an even more impressive Olympic debut than Sagir as she crushed her competition with world record lifts of 122.5 kg in the snatch and 153 kg in the clean and jerk for another world record total of 275 kg. Eszter Krutzler of Hungary earned the silver with 262.5 kg and Russia’s Zarema Kasaeva became the youngest ever medalist in Olympic women’s weightlifting taking the bronze with the same total. But the 17-year-old was ranked lower because of heavier body weight.
