WEIGHTLIFTING – Bahrain's Alina Marushchak and Gor Minasyan bagged a silver and bronze medal, respectively, yesterday in weightlifting at the 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan.
Marushchak narrowly missed out on gold in the women’s 86kg competition after finishing just one kg behind title winner Yan Wu from China. Minasyan did enough to secure his place on the podium after a heated contest amongst a high-quality field in the men’s over-110kg.
Marushchak lifted a total weight of 272kg – coming from her snatch best of 124kg and then her top clean and jerk mark of 148kg. But Wu went one better with a 273kg total. Marushchak matched Wu’s 124kg lift in snatch, but then her Chinese rival secured gold with one attempt to spare following a successful 149kg clean and jerk effort.
Mahsa Beheshty from Iran joined the pair on the podium. She posted a 259kg total to come away with bronze from 113kg in snatch and 146kg in clean and jerk.
Marushchak was making her Asian Games debut for Bahrain and impressively completed all six of her lifts while raising the bar on each of her attempts at Nagoya City Trade and Industry Centre. She opened the snatch portion of her event with a 116kg success before going for 120kg. Her best of 124kg then came on her third lift, which was tied-best for the opening section. In the clean and jerk, Marushchak kicked things off with a 136kg lift and then was successful at 142kg. She then boosted her gold medal bid with her final attempt at 148kg, but it was eventually just short of first place.
On the distaff, Minasyan was able to complete one attempt each in snatch and clean and jerk to finish with a total of 440kg for bronze.
His opening snatch lift of 205kg was his lone success after being unable to complete his next two efforts at 211kg. Then, in clean and jerk, his second go at 235kg earned him his podium appearance as he could not complete his final try of 246kg.
Ali Davoudi from Iran captured the gold medal with a 446kg total from a 206kg snatch and 260kg clean and jerk, while Ali Ammar Rubaiawi from Iraq took silver just one kg back. Rubaiawi’s snatch lift of 219kg was his best of the competition but had a 246kg clean and jerk to fall agonisingly shy of the title.
In attendance during yesterday’s competitions were Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) board member and Bahrain Weightlifting Federation (BWF) president Eshaq Ebrahim Eshaq, BOC executive director of operations and Bahrain’s chef de mission in Aichi-Nagoya Ahmed Abdulghaffar, BWF board member and BWF secretary general Tariq Al Bastaki, and other delegation officials.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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