North Korea’s weightlifting team’s return to international competition after a four-year absence was ‘golden with world records’.
The DPRK swept the weightlifting events at the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games on Tuesday, winning two gold medals on the day. It was North Korea’s fourth and fifth gold medals of the Games.
Ri Sung-geum (25) won the women’s 49kg weightlifting event in Group A with a lift of 92kg in the snatch and 124kg in the jerk for a total of 216kg, beating Zhang Huihua (25-CN), who lifted 213kg (94kg in the snatch and 119kg in the jerk), on 30 June at the Hangzhou Xiaoshan Sports Centre in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
In the women’s 55kg event, Kang Hyun-kyung (24), making her international debut, took the top spot with a total of 233kg (103kg lift, 130kg vault). North Korea’s Ri Su-yeon (27) finished second with a total of 222kg (96kg vault and 126kg beam).
Ri set new world records in the total and vault, and Kang set new world records in the total and lift.
Ri Sung-gum was beaten by Zhang Hui-hua in the impressions, but rebounded to win gold in the long jump.
She stood on the top of the podium with a new world record, beating Zhang Huihua’s previous world record of 120kg on vault and 215kg in total.
Zhang Huihua is a dominant force in this weight class, having won the 2019 Pattaya and 2022 Bogota World Championships.
However, Li Shengkei, who won the 48kg title at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games, defeated Zhang Huihua in Hangzhou to win his second consecutive Asian Games gold medal.
As the International Weightlifting Federation reorganised the weight class system in 2018, the 48kg category was eliminated, so Li’s victory will not be recorded as a ‘back-to-back Asian Games in the category’.
Kang Hyun-kyung dominated the platform in the next event, the 55kg category.
After breaking the previous world record (102kg) set by Li Yazhun (CHN) in 2019 with 103kg in the lift, Kang virtually sealed the victory with a successful 120kg in the first phase of the dragon phase.
From then on, Kang fought for records, not medal colours.
Wanting to challenge the total world record, she requested 125kg in the second phase of the dragon phase, breaking the previous record of 277kg held by Liao Chuyun (CHN).
Kang didn’t stop there and also lifted 130kg in the third phase of the competition, extending her total world record in the women’s 55kg category to 233kg.
South Korea’s Yoo Won-ju (29-Busan City Sports Association), who also competed in this weight class, finished eighth with 87kg in the lift, 104kg in the vault and 191kg in the total.
Before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), 온라인카지노 North Korea was a weightlifting powerhouse that threatened the reigning champion China.
However, the country has been absent from international competition since the 2019 World Championships in Pattaya, putting a question mark over the quality of North Korean weightlifting.
North Korea was punished by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for missing the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in 2021 to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the country.
The suspension automatically ended on 31 December 2022.
North Korean weightlifting did not compete at the recently concluded 2023 World Championships in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. North Korean weightlifters will not be able to compete at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris due to their repeated absence from international competitions where Olympic ranking points are at stake.
World Weightlifting wanted to use the Hangzhou Asian Games to see how North Korea’s weightlifters were performing.
After the first weightlifting event of the Games saw Ri Sung Kum and Kang Hyon Kyong beat the ‘weightlifting superpower’ China, there were fewer doubts about the quality of North Korean weightlifters.
However, there are still many in the weightlifting community who would like to see North Korea sanctioned, as the country’s sport does not comply with international rules on banned substances, with North Korea refusing to allow international doping control officers to enter the country for unannounced tests. 슬롯
