Chapter 425: Weightlifting

Chapter 425: Weightlifting

CCTV-5 Sports News official microblog posted a Weibo post immediately after Meng Fan won the men's 130kg Greco-Roman wrestling gold medal:

[Meng Fan wins another gold! After the judo team event, Meng Fan has secured his third gold medal!] In the just-concluded final of the wrestling 130kg Greco-Roman category at the Kyoto Olympics, Meng Fan effortlessly defeated his opponent with absolute dominance, taking only three OKs to claim the gold in this weight class! This is Meng Fan's third gold medal of these Olympics, making him the third Chinese athlete to win three golds in a single Olympic Games, and also... (expand full text↓)

(Expanded full text): the third athlete in Olympic history to win gold medals across different major sports categories, and the only one so far to have won Olympic gold in both judo and wrestling! Next, Meng Fan still has weightlifting and freestyle wrestling competitions to compete in, and every step could make history! Let us look forward to his brilliant performances in weightlifting and freestyle wrestling! #KyotoOlympics #DidMengFanWinGoldToday #MengThreeGold (Attached with CCTV-5 Sports News video)

The data provided by CCTV-5 Sports News is quite interesting, using several "threes."

Three OKs—those following Meng Fan's matches know one OK equals three seconds.

Third gold medal, meaning individual judo, team judo, and Greco-Roman wrestling.

Third Chinese athlete to win three golds in a single Olympics, the previous two being "Gymnastics Prince" Li Ning, who won gold in floor exercise, pommel horse, and rings at the 1984 Olympics, and Zou Kai, the "Five-Gold King," who won gold in floor exercise, horizontal bar, and men's team at the 2008 Olympics.

Third athlete to win Olympic gold across different major sports categories, the previous two being American track and field athletes Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis, who spanned the same events: long jump in field events and 100m sprint in track events.

These two events are also the most common cross-category pair, both demanding high speed and explosive power. Generally, strong sprinters are good at long jump, and vice versa, since a fast approach run is essential for jumping far.

At lower levels, like city or even provincial games, it's common for the same person to win both events, and even more so at school level.

Of course, there are differences, so at higher-level competitions, it's rarer to see, as mastering just one event is already extremely difficult.

A side note: a "major category" refers to a broad class of sports. For example, all running events like 100m, 200m, 400m fall under track events. Bolt winning three consecutive golds in 100m, 200m, and 4x100m is great but not considered cross-category. Similarly, Phelps winning eight golds in one Olympics still all fall under swimming.

The physical demands within one major category are relatively similar—don't argue with shot put, hammer throw, high jump, and pole vault all being field events—so training across events within one category is comparatively easier. Yet even then, excelling in multiple events and winning top-level championships is incredibly hard.

Almost every Olympic champion represents the human limit in some physical domain. It's hard enough to reach that limit in one area, let alone multiple.

This shows the difficulty of crossing major categories, which is why only two people before Meng Fan succeeded, and they focused on the "speed and explosive power" domain.

Meng Fan has crossed judo and wrestling, which might seem both strength-related to laypeople, but those truly familiar with these sports know they are entirely different technical and tactical fields.

Of course, if you insist that raw strength overcomes all techniques, there's no arguing.

Indeed, Meng Fan's "raw strength" truly exceeds what technique can dismantle.

Both wrestling and judo have techniques for the weak to overcome the strong, but they falter against Meng Fan's power.

If it were a champion from a pure strength event, like weightlifting or the World's Strongest Man competition, they'd be useless in these two sports. But Meng Fan is different—after all, he's cheating, and damn hardworking!

CCTV-5 Sports News's statement that "every step could make history" is no exaggeration. If Meng Fan also wins freestyle wrestling, he'll be the only athlete ever to win Olympic gold in both Greco-Roman and freestyle. If he wins weightlifting, he'll be the first Olympic champion across three major categories!

If he wins all, in terms of gold medal count, Meng Fan will become the first Chinese athlete to win five golds in a single Olympics, and one of the most decorated Chinese athletes—Zou Kai (gymnastics), Chen Ruolin (diving), and Wu Minxia (diving) have all won five golds.

He will also become one of the athletes with the third-most golds in a single Olympics. The most is Phelps's eight in 2008, second is Phelps's six in 2004, and those with five include Phelps in 2016, Finnish Flying Finn Paavo Nurmi in 1924, and Italian fencer Nedo Nadi in 1920.

Next up for Meng Fan is weightlifting. On the day after the 130kg Greco-Roman wrestling final, the 11th competition day, the Kyoto International Forum Building hosts the final day of weightlifting at these Olympics. On this day, the men's 109kg and 109kg+ champions will be decided.

The competition starts at 15:30, beginning with the men's 109kg Group B final.

As previously explained about the difference between Groups A and B in weightlifting, groups are divided by entry results. After both group finals, overall rankings are determined. Typically, even the first place in Group B rarely makes the top eight, let alone medals, so Group B is always ignored in live broadcasts, replays, and news.

When the 109kg Group B clean and jerk begins, the 109kg Group A athletes start weigh-in—weightlifting weigh-in is one hour before the event, while wrestling and judo are the day before.

Yang Zhe is China's best performer in the heavier categories in recent years, having placed fourth at the 2016 Olympics, with medal potential. The snatch is his strength; he won gold in the snatch at the 2018 World Championships, but his clean and jerk is weaker, placing fourth at the 2018 Worlds, earning silver overall.

Olympic weightlifting ranks only by total weight.

In the snatch, Yang Zhe successfully lifted 198kg on his final attempt, ranking first in the snatch and breaking the world record in this weight class after the weight adjustment!

But in the clean and jerk, his weakness showed. Though he achieved a personal best of 226kg, it only placed fourth, 14kg behind the Armenian athlete's 240kg. Fortunately, the Georgian favorite failed two consecutive clean and jerk attempts and missed the top three overall, while Yang Zhe won a bronze medal with a total of 424kg.

Next is the men's 109kg+ Group B competition. During the clean and jerk, Meng Fan and other athletes begin weigh-in.

After weigh-in, athletes report their opening snatch weights based on entry results. According to rules, the competition weight cannot be 15kg lower than the entry result.

Meng Fan's entry result came from the last intercontinental selection, not high, roughly mid-tier among the 12 Group A athletes. His reported opening snatch weight was relatively good, at 208kg, ranking third among all opening weights. The favorite, current world record holder Georgian athlete Lasha Talakhadze, reported the highest opening weight at 213kg.

The world record after the weight adjustment is 217kg, and this Georgian athlete once lifted 220kg in the 105kg+ category before the adjustment.

Group B ends quickly, and it's Group A's turn. Broadcasts and live feeds immediately connect.

"CCTV, CCTV! The competition you are now watching is... Based on the reported opening weights, Chinese athlete Meng Fan is in third place... The competition begins. The first athlete to take the stage is from North Korea, with an opening weight of 192kg... Very smooth, no problem, the lift is valid. It's clear his strength is greater than this; he might increase the weight to over 200kg."

"...Now it's the Iranian athlete's turn, with an opening weight of 206kg... Ah, a bit unfortunate, his elbow bent, and the judges showed two red lights. He didn't change the weight, and his second attempt at the same weight succeeded!"

"Next up is China's Meng Fan... Wait, it seems he's changed the weight. In the frame, Meng Fan's coach Zhan Xugang appears, familiar to weightlifting fans; he is also an Olympic champion... Yes, indeed, he changed the weight to 214kg, meaning Meng Fan will lift after Talakhadze!"

On the field, due to Meng Fan's last-minute weight change, the Kazakh athlete, originally with the second-heaviest opening weight, had to lift early and successfully lifted 208kg.

Then the favorite Talakhadze took the stage. He didn't alter his strategy because of Meng Fan's change and smoothly lifted 213kg, securing a baseline result.

Director Zhan changed the weight again—each attempt allows two weight changes—this time directly to 218kg, the weight Meng Fan achieved domestically, surpassing the world record!

Thus, the Kazakh athlete had to lift again, failing twice consecutively at 215kg.

Talakhadze's second attempt was reported at 217kg, his previous world record.

He had never experienced a situation where someone hadn't lifted yet when he was about to attempt his second. Meng Fan's weight change disrupted his rhythm.

Honestly, he was uncertain about Meng Fan!

He decided to change too!

(End of chapter)