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| Event type

Featherweight (≤60 kilograms), Men

Date29 August 1920 — 17:30
StatusOlympic
LocationOlympisch Stadion, Antwerpen
Participants14 from 11 countries
FormatTotal of best lifts in three phases determined placement.

François “Frans” De Haes won the only gold medal for Belgium in weightlifting at the 1920 Olympics. De Haes is described well by Roland Renson in his book, The Games Reborn: The VIIth Olympiad Antwerp 1920, “Frans De Haes (1895-1923) was a typical son of the Antwerp sporting proletariat. ‘This true child of Antwerp, this unbastardized sinjoor, as Sport-Revue (1920, 2(11) of 21 September: 171) liked to call him, had fled with his parents to the neutral Netherlands in order to escape the Germany occupation. At the age of 17, he started weight-lifting in Holland under the guidance of Henri Borstlap, who had been trained himself by the famous Antwerp wrestler, Laurent Gerstmans. He joined the Amsterdamse Vereeniging der Halters and reached the standards of Dutch champion Eyman. He joined the Gerstmans Worstelclub, founded in 1919, when he returned to Antwerp after the war and bettered all three Belgian records in the feather-weight class. . . . He was preparing for the Games of 1924 when this ‘working class hero’ was struck down by influenza and died at the end of May 1923 … ”

PosCompetitor(s)NOCK
1Frans De HaesBEL220.0ORGold
2Alfred SchmidtEST210.0Silver
3Eugène RyterSUI210.0Bronze
4Luigi GattiITA195.0
5Ludvík WágnerTCH195.0
6Gustav ErikssonSWE192.5
=7Louis De HaesBEL190.0
=7Karl KõivEST190.0
9Kees TijmanNED185.0
10Niels FlorinDEN180.0
11John PaineGBR172.5
12André DelloueFRA150.0
13Jean DucherFRA140.0
ACMichel MertesLUX(45.0)