Riyadh runs pink. Midway during the Global Weightlifting Federation’s (IWF) 2023 International Weightlifting Championships (WWC), Workforce China has accumulated extra gold medals than some other nation — and it’s no longer shut. On Wednesday, Sep. 13, China furthered their lead after weightlifter Liao Guifang set two new international data within the highly-competitive 71-kilogram Staff A consultation.

Guifang, the predicted favourite to win the consultation general, went six-for-six at the day. She snatched 120 kilograms (264.5 kilos), blank & jerked 153 kilograms (377.3 kilos), for a General of 273 pounds, or 601.8 kilos. The blank & jerk and General marked two new Senior international data; the newest of a number of set within the 71s all the way through 2023. 

[Check In: 2023 IWF World Weightlifting Championships Full Results]

Guifang had a dominant efficiency in Saudi Arabia, taking house gold medals around the board. Her 120-kilogram grab fell simply shy of the 121-kilogram international document owned through Ecuador’s Angie Palacios Dajomes, who took silver general. American athlete Olivia Reeves rounded out the rostrum in 3rd position.

2023 International Weightlifting Championships | Ladies’s 71-Kilogram

The 71-kilogram department of girls’s weightlifting is certainly one of various body weight classes that might be contested on the upcoming 2024 Olympic Video games in Paris, France, which kick off in not up to a 12 months. As such, the contest is tighter than ever, particularly at outstanding weightlifting occasions just like the WWC. Listed below are the total podium effects from the 71A consultation in Riyadh:

1. Liao Guifang (CHN): 273KG WR (120/153 WR)
2. Angie Palacios Dajomes (ECU): 255KG (117/138)
3. Olivia Reeves (USA): 253KG (111/142)

A Transferring Panorama

Some divisions of Olympic lifting are, for probably the most phase, predictable. Categories just like the Ladies’s 49-kilogram and Males’s +109-kilogram are in large part ruled through the similar handful of athletes who every vie for the highest of the rostrum. Different categories — such because the Ladies’s 71-kilogram — are way more tumultuous.

For the previous six years, the highest slots within the 71s were in consistent flux; as have the sector data. On the 2022 WWC closing 12 months in Bogotá, Colombia, Romanian weightlifter Loredana Toma set a brand new international document within the grab with 119 kilograms (Toma additionally gained the contest outright).

Rapid ahead a couple of months into the spring of ’23, and Guifang had inched that document ahead through a kilo on the Asian Weightlifting Championships. A month after that, Palacios Dajomes driven it up once more, hitting 121 on the 2023 IWF Grand Prix I. 

The combat excessive of the 71-kilogram podium is even fiercer: Because the 71-kilo elegance used to be first established in 2018, a special athlete has gained the General gold medal at every annually International Championships. Guifang reclaimed the category for China for the primary time since 2018: 

Ladies’s 71-Kilogram | International Weightlifting Championships 2018 – 2023

Notice: The WWC used to be no longer held in 2020 because of it first of all being an Olympic Video games 12 months along with headaches surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Guifang could also be the newest to take the throne, however it kind of feels not likely that her reign will finish anytime quickly. She gained the 2023 WWC through an 18-kilogram margin and set two new international data within the procedure. Because it stands, an Olympic gold medal for China within the 71s turns out like a certain factor. 

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Featured Symbol: William Johnson / @barbellstories