BEIJING: Pak Hyon-suk overcame certain elimination to win North Korea’s first weightlifting gold medal at the Beijing Olympics yesterday, as Liao Hui hoisted China to their fifth lifting title here.
Fearful of losing and driven by a desire to please North Korea’s “Dear Leader,” the 23-year-old Pak delivered the goods in a heart-stopping finish.
After two missed attempts, she had faced either elimination or victory as she walked up to the bar for the last time to attempt 135kg in the clean and jerk. She needed to get the bar up to overhaul Irina Nekrassova of Kazakhstan, who had finished with a 240kg total and eventually ended with the silver. Taiwan’s Lu Ying-Chi won the bronze.
After failing at the same weight twice, the North Korean was finally successful with her do-or-die final lift to eclipse Nekrassova by just one kilogram.
“I just kept it in my head that my Dear General’s eyes would be watching over me, and that encouraged me to lift this weight,” she said, referring to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Il who is invariably called
“Dear Leader” or “Dear General” by his people. The pressure was on her to produce after North Korean lifters had all failed in the first three days of competition, including world champion Cha Kum-chol in the men’s 56kg.
Meanwhile, 20-year-old Liao won China’s fifth weightlifting gold in an equally dramatic finish that also saw former Chinese world champion Shi Zhiyong withdraw from the clean and jerk portion of the contest.
Warned by his parents he would become a dwarf if he pursued the sport, Liao hoisted 158kg in the snatch and 190kg in the clean and jerk for a total of 348kg and reflected on what could have been had he followed his parents’ advice instead of that of his coach.
“Because they had traditional ideas that I would not grow tall and become very short and fat, they tried to discourage me from lifting weights,” Liao said.
In the end the persistent provincial coach prevailed on the parents and Liao shot from obscurity in Hubei province over three years to make the national team.
However, he was made to sweat after completing his lifts as Vencelas Dabaya-Tientcheu of France, who was running in second place with an interim total of 338kg, made an audacious play for the gold with two chances for clean and jerk lift of 197kg.
“I saw how he lifted 187kg (the Frenchman’s first clean and jerk lift) easily and realized that he was a very strong opponent. I was worried,” Liao said.
“I was in a bad position because my second lift was inferior. I was really nervous and was waiting for something to happen.” The Frenchman failed in the first attempt, however, and decided not to try again, having already assured himself of the silver medal.
“Today I had no choice but to go for 197kg,” Dabaya-Tientcheu said. “I had never lifted that much but I believe I got closer to that today.” Junior world champion Tigran Martirosyan of Armenia won the bronze, also with a total of 338kg but he had a slightly higher body weight than the Frenchman.
Martirosyan said he was weakened by having to lose 8kg of his body weight to make the 69kg cut.
