Incheon: Taiwan’s Lin Tzu-chi broke two world records to snatch gold from China’s Deng Wei in the women’s 63kg at the Asian Games and warned her rival she could lift even more weight. In another extraordinary afternoon at the Incheon Moonlight Gardens weightlifting arena, four world records were erased as Lin and Deng fought out a titanic battle.
Lin took the lead with a clean and jerk lift of 143kg for a 259kg aggregate which smashed the old world record of 257kg set back in 2007.
Deng then strode out and hoisted a world record 144kg clean and jerk, to equal Lin’s total and go into gold medal position by virtue of lower bodyweight.
Lin, with one lift remaining, somehow hauled 145kg above her head to condemn Deng to silver and set more world records for both the clean and jerk and the combined (261kg) in the process.
“Next championship I will be stronger and do even better,” Lin told AFP, looking ahead to November’s world championships in Kazakhstan. “Actually, I knew I could make this weight because I had achieved it in training,” Lin added.
Lin, the 2013 Asian champion at 58kg, had started the competition as favourite along with Deng, a world champion at 58kg last year, despite both being something of an unknown quantity at 63kg after stepping up in weight.
China’s world and Olympic champion Lyu Xiaojun summoned up a glorious final lift, staggering to his haunches but then recovering with sheer determination to clean and jerk 200kg and win the men’s 77kg.