Featherweight (≤61 kg), Men

The men’s weightlifting competition in Paris started, as always, with the lightest weight class. With the 56 kg class being discontinued after the Rio Games, this was now the 61 kg class, and was the “heaviest” lightest weight ever contested. Between 1920-36, it was 60 kg, and between 1948-2016, the lightest weight was at weight limits between 52 and 56 kg.

As in Tokyo, there were two clear favorites in Paris, in China’s Li Fabin and Indonesia’s Eko Yuli Irawan. The pair had won gold and silver, respectively, in Tokyo, with Li being the current world and Olympic record holder. Other strong contenders included Hampton Morris of the United States, who was the world record holder in the clean & jerk going into the Games, and Aniq Kasdan of Malaysia, who won gold at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

At the end of the snatch element, Li and Irawan where in first and second places, respectively. Li had lifted 143 kg with his third attempt, setting an Olympic record in the process. Four of the 12 athletes were eliminated at this stage of the competition after failing to record a valid lift with their three attempts. The clean & jerk proved to be disastrous for Irawan, who was unable to make a valid lift, and therefore was out of the competition. The American lifter Hampton Morris had the best result in this phase, with 172 kg, closely followed by Theerapong Silachai of Thailand, who was just one kilogram behind him. Li was down in fourth, with 167 kg, but had done enough in the snatch to secure his second consecutive gold at the Olympics. Silachai was consistent enough with his lifts to win silver, with Morris taking home the bronze.