Middleweight (≤75 kilograms), Men

This class was considered wide open with no clear favorite. Soviet lifter Vladimir Kanygin had won the 1971 World Championships and took the lead after the press with 165.0 kg, but he then failed on all three snatch attempts and was out of the competition. The leaders after the snatch were Bulgarian Yordan Bikov and Lebanon’s Mohamed Kheir Tarabulsi, who both lifted 160.0 kg in the press and 140.0 kg in the snatch. Both were little known, although Bikov had won the clean & jerk at the 1971 Worlds, and Tarabulsi had won a bronze in the snatch at the 1970 Worlds. When Bikov jerked 185.0 kg, the gold medal was his, with Tarabulsi taking silver, just ahead of Italian Anselmo Silvino, who had also been overall bronze medalist at the 1971 World Championships. Through 2016, Tarabulsi’s medal in 1972 is the only Olympic medal won by a Lebanese lifter.