Bantamweight (≤56 kilograms), Men

None of the medalists from 1976 had returned but the 1978 World Champion, Cuban Daniel Núñez, was in Moskva. He put the gold medal away with a world record snatch of 125.0 kg, although Soviet Armenian Yuri Sarkisyan cleaned & jerked a world record 157.5 kg to take the silver medal. The bronze appeared to be a tie between Poland’s Tadeusz Dembończyk and East German Andreas Letz, who both lifted 265.0 kg and both had weighed 55.6 kg at the weigh-in. They were re-weighed after the competition, with Dembończyk getting the bronze medal, another example, as in the flyweight class, of a medal awarded because one guy sweated more than the other.