Category — Weight Lifting

Chinese athletes do rule weightlifting, no? They grabbed eight of the 11 gold medals awarded so far. Here’s China’s Lu Yong celebrating after winning gold medal number 24 for China. Lu tied with Andrei Rybakou of Belarus as both lifted 394 kilos but he was awarded the gold because he registered a lighter body weight during the weigh-in.

Armenia’s Tigran Varban Martirosyan won the bronze medal for this event (weightlifting, 85 kg category).

Photo credit: gettyimages via beijing2008

China’s gold medal count remained stuck at 22 for much of Day 7 but this has now gone up to 23 following the victory of Cao Lei in women’s weightlifting (75 kg category). She bested Alla Vazhenina of Kazakhstan who got the silver and Russian Nadezda Evstyukhina who settled for the bronze.

For those of you interested in the China vs. US race for gold medals, it currently stands at: China (23 golds) vs. U.S. (14 golds).

Photo source: xinhua via beijing2008

Here’s something I should have blogged about earlier but haven’t. Well, it’s better late than never. This dude, dear readers, is South Korean Sa Jae-hyouk who crashed China’s party in the weightlifting competitions when he won the gold medal in the 77 kilogram category. China’s Li Hongli and Armenia’s Gevorg Davtyan settled for the silver and bronze respectively.

Photo credit: gettyimages via beijing2008

North Korean weightlifter Pak Hyon Suk proved to be the strongest in the women’s 63kg weightlifting competition and bagged the first gold medal for North Korea.

Photo credit: Paul Gilham via Beijing2008

Here’s tip number one for those of you Olympic wannabes: if you want to win an Olympic gold medal, change your name to something like Supercalifragilistic Expialidocious. Will it work? The trick worked for Thai weightlifter Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon so it might work for you too.

Legend has it [actually it's a true story] that Prawadee, then named Chanpim Kantatian wasn’t sure whether she can make it to the Thai Olympic team so she consulted a fortune teller who advised her to change her name. So Chanpim Kantatian became Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon. And then she went on to win an Olympic gold medal, the first for Thailand in the Beijing Games. Congratulations to our Thai friends. Kaw sadeng kwam yin dee duay!!

Interesting side note: The Canadian Broadcasting Company is reporting that China could have won this event if “not for a rule that limits competitors to four women per country”. More here.

Edited to Add: Prapawadee will be US$314,000 richer based on Thailand’s incentive scheme for Olympic medalists. Want to know the financial incentives given by other countries? Here’s the link: How Much Money Do Olympians Make? Thailand is giving out the highest incentive so far followed by the Philippines’ US$220,000.

Photo source: xinhuanet