Qatar’s weightlifter Faris Ibrahim el-Bakh won a silver medal at the IWF World Championships in Pattaya, Thailand, yesterday. The 21-year-old lifted a total of 402kg – 224 in the clean jerk and 178 in the snatch – in the 96kg category.
The gold medal went to China’s Tian Tao, who lifted 410kg (230 clean and jerk and 180 snatch). Anton Pliesnoi took bronze for a total lift of 394kg.
Faris holds the junior world record in the clean and jerk (225kg) and total (397kg) in the 96kg division. And yesterday, he once again showed he is one of Qatar’s best bets to pick up a medal at the Tokyo Olympics next year. The Pattaya Worlds is a significant qualifying event for Tokyo 2020 with the points going towards the Olympic ranking list.
Thirteen out of the 14 competitors in each weight class at Tokyo 2020 will be determined by the rankings on 30 April 2020 with the top eight qualifying automatically subject to a maximum of one athlete per country. A record 606 athletes from 100 countries are competing at the World Championships, which will end on September 27.
Faris had finished eighth in the 85kg event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio but was updated to seventh after the original bronze medallist Gabriel Sincraian failed a drug test in October of that year.
In 2017 he moved up to the 94kg category and competed at the World Championships, winning a silver medal in the clean & jerk and placing fourth overall. In the 2018 Worlds he won a bronze medal in the clean & jerk in the new 96kg category.
Faris had won gold at the 2017 and 2018 Junior World Championships, as well as bronze in the 2016 edition in the 85kg category. The Qatar lifter also has a silver medal from the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta.
