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| Event type

Lightweight (≤67 kilograms), Men

Date25 July 2021
StatusOlympic
LocationTokyo International Forum, Yūrakuchō Business District (Marunouchi District), Tokyo, Japan
Participants14 from 14 countries
FormatTotal of best lifts in snatch and clean & jerk determined placement. Ties broken by lightest bodyweight.

The second day of the Olympic weightlifting competition saw the second men’s event contested. It was the first time since 1992 that two weight classes had been held on the same day. This weight class was for lifters up to 67 kg, almost equal to the 67.5 kg of the historical lightweight class contested between 1920 and 1992. In the field of 14 lifters was Chen Lijun, season best 333 kg, a four-time world champion 2013 and 2015 (62 kg) and 2018-19 (67 kg). He was also the Asian Championships winner in 2019 and 2020 (held in April 2021). At the 2019 Asian Championships he also set world records in snatch (154 kg), clean & jerk (185 kg), and the still-standing record in total (339 kg). The snatch world record was bettered by Huang Minhao (CHN), season best 332 kg, with 155 kg at the Olympics Test Event in Tokyo later in 2019, and the clean & jerk world record, which Chen improved to 187 kg, was bettered by Pak Jong-Ju with 188 kg at the 2019 World Championships, but both Huang and Pak did not compete at the Tokyo Games. Huang missed the Games because every nation could only nominate one athlete per weight class, and Pak was not present because PRK did not send a team due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The remaining challengers to Chen were Luis Javier Mosquera, season best 330 kg, bronze medallist from Rio (69 kg) and 2020 Pan American champion (held in 2021), Muhammed Furkan Özbek, season best 323 kg, gold medallist at the 2021 European Championships and 2021 Junior World Championships, Mirko Zanni, qualification best 320 kg, runner-up at the 2021 European Championships, and Adkhamjon Ergashev, qualification best 328 kg, 2019 Junior World champion, bronze medallist at the last Asian Championships, and second best qualifier for the Tokyo Games in the ranking list on points.

Chen and Zanni both lifted 145 kg in their first snatch attempts, but both were not able to improve in their next two attempts as both failed to lift weights of 150- and 151 kg, respectively. This opened up the competition for others with Mosquera having already lifted 148 kg in his first snatch. Han Myeong-Mok and Talha Talib, who only got a place on the Tripartite Commission Invitation a few weeks before the Games, both lifted 147 kg in their second attempts. When Mosquera cleared 151 kg and Talib, known as a good snatcher, did the same with 150 kg in their last attempts, they finished first and second after the snatch followed by Han (147 kg), Chen, and Zanni (both 145 kg). The first of the medal contenders to finish his clean & jerk was Talib who lifted 170 kg in his last attempt for a total of 320 kg. He had already caused some drama after collapsing on the stage shortly after missing his first attempt over 166 kg due to short of breath. He soon recovered after medical staff supported him and he went on for another two lifts, and both were successful over 166 kg and 170 kg. Zanni failed to lift 172 kg in his first attempt and Han failed 174 kg in his second. When Han lifted 174 kg in his last attempt for a total of 321 kg, Zanni had to go for 177 kg to overtake the Korean. The Italian failed in his second attempt, but managed to clear 177 kg in his last attempt for a total of 322 kg, winning bronze with only two good lifts in this competition. In between, both Mosquera and Chen lifted 175 kg, which secured the former at least a silver medal. After a missed attempt at 180 kg, it looked as though Mosquera cleared this weight with his last lift, but the attempt was given invalid as he dropped the bar before the siren. This was reviewed by the jury and finally it was given as a good lift as he always had control over the weight. This gave him a total of 331 kg, putting pressure on Chen, who now had to go for 187 kg, 12 kg more as in his first attempt and only one kilogram short of the world record, to win gold. Still competing was Ergashev, who tried to lift 184 kg, which would have been good enough to win bronze, but he failed twice. So, the last athlete to perform was Chen, down in fourth place and out of the medals, he had two more attempts to lift 187 kg. He needed only one as he was successful in his first attempt, totaling 332 kg. After being down 6 kg after the snatch, he won gold by 1 kg.

The Olympic Standard for Olympic records was 151 kg for snatch, 181 kg for clean & jerk, and 328 kg for total. The best snatch in this competition was by Mosquera with 151 kg, but as the standard had to be improved by at least 1 kg this did not count as Olympic record. In clean & jerk, Chen set an Olympic record with 187 kg, and in total, first Mosquera set the Olympic record with 331 kg, only to be bettered by Chen with 332 kg.

This was the third weightlifting gold medal for China at the Games, so China was still unbeaten. Winning two weightlifting gold medals on the same day made China the first nation to do so since 1960 when Viktor Bushuyev and Aleksandr Kurynov both won gold for the Soviet Union on the same day. If counting the 69 kg class as precursor of this weight class, China has won the last five gold medals in this event. Silver was the second medal for Mosquera, but the first time he stood on the podium as his bronze medal in 2016 only came after being upgraded following a doping case. The bronze medal of Zanni for Italy, who already won the first weightlifting medal for Italy at the Youth Olympics with bronze in 2014, was the first weightlifting medal for that nation since Norberto Oberburger won gold back in 1984. Talib, the first Olympic weightlifter competing for Pakistan since 1976, placed fifth to give his country the best ever weightlifting result in history. Their last Olympic medal in any sport was back to 1992, when the men’s hockey team took home bronze.

PosGroupLifterNOCWeightBodyweightSnatchClean & Jerk
1AChen LijunCHN33266.85145 (4)187 (1)ORGold
2ALuis MosqueraCOL33166.85151 (1)180 (2)ORSilver
3AMirko ZanniITA32266.95145 (5)177 (3)Bronze
4AHan Myeong-MokKOR32166.90147 (3)174 (4)
5ATalha TalibPAK32066.95150 (2)170 (7)
6AAdkhamjon ErgashevUZB31267.00139 (7)173 (5)
7AMitsunori KonnaiJPN30766.95135 (=10)172 (6)
8BGoga ChkheidzeGEO30266.95133 (12)169 (8)
9A DeniINA30166.75135 (8)166 (9)
10BJonathan MuñozMEX29866.85135 (9)163 (10)
11BTojonirina AndriantsitohainaMAD28566.00130 (13)155 (11)
12BRuben KatoatauKIR24567.00105 (14)140 (12)
DNFABernardin MatamFRA66.95135 (=10)– (NVL)
DNFAMuhammed Furkan ÖzbekTUR66.70142 (6)– (NVL)