2024 Olympic Games, Day 4 Recap – Men’s 102 kg: Liu Huanhua Reigns the Category, While Qatari Meso Hassouna is Out of The Battle 

The Olympic Games are moving closer to its end, and heavyweight athletes were ready to show positive results increasing their chances to up the Olympic ranking. Day 4 is going to be captivating as the category gathered powerful challengers to get the Olympic gold. 

Thirteen lifters were competing at the South Paris Arena 6 this afternoon, doing their best to overlift the contenders.

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This competition became one of the most unpredictable since the outcomes were indeed shocking for the whole audience. To get the details stay with us and track the review of the 102-kg weight class.

Read the full review about each day of the IWF Weightlifting World Championship 2024 prepared by our media team. Don’t miss the opportunity to stay updated and follow this great event in the weightlifting world with us from the very beginning till the end!

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Athletes’ presentation

Today thirteen highly motivated, driven-to-win weightlifters from the heavyweight division ordered great weights for their openers to overlift their rivals in each session. 

Like the 89-kg category, the Men’s 102 division is pretending to be the most competitive and thrilling in the world of weightlifting where World and Olympic champions keep on pushing them hard towards the Olympic medal.

Liu Huanhua from China, a World Champion, Asian Games champion and a current world record holder. He’s a first-time Olympian, and four-time World Championships medalist, winning gold in Clean & Jerk and total in 2023, and overall bronze and C&J silver in 2022 in different categories. His World title he gained in 2023 was the first time in 26 years that a Chinese weightlifter triumphed in a weight class over 100 kg.

Armenian Garik Karapetyan, the European Champion and the current Junior World Record holder in Snatch, Clean & Jerk, and totals. He debuted at the senior competitions at the 2023 European Championships in Yerevan, winning gold in the 102-kg category. He has an ambition to become a World and Olympic champion, however he competes at the Olympic Games for the first time. He also won three golds in consecutive World Junior Championships in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

Elbakh Fares Ibrahim, the first Qatari Olympic champion, World Champion, and two-time Junior World Champion, holding the Junior world record in Clean & Jerk and totals. He won Qatar’s first Olympic gold medal and set middle-heavyweight Olympic records in the clean and jerk (225kg) and total (402 kg) when winning the 96 kg class at Tokyo 2020. At Rio 2016, he finished seventh as the youngest weightlifter to represent Qatar being 18 years.

Akbar Djuraev from Uzbekistan, an Olympic champion in 2020, World champion in 2021, 2023, and Junior world champion in 2019. In 2021 he debuted at the Olympics in Tokyo 2020 becoming the second-youngest heavyweight champion since 2000 by winning gold. He’s also a 2024 Asian champion in the 102 kg weight division.

Montano Lesman, a Bahraini weightlifter with Colombian origin who won a gold medal at the 2021 World Championships. He started to represent Bahrain since 2022, bringing two gold medals to the country. He’s a first-time Olympian with big ambitions to win Olympic gold, and a 2022 Asian champion in Snatch and total.

Snatch

The performance in the Snatch exercise started from 161 kg.

Here are the names of weightlifters who succeeded to get to the Top 6:

4: Tsikhantsou Yauheni (AIN) – 183 kg
5: Montano Lesman (BRN) – 181 kg
6: Hasanbayev Davranbek (TKM) – 180 kg

Top 3 leaders’ results

Now let’s analyze the Top 3 lifters’ performance:

1: Karapetyan Garik (ARM)  – 186 kg
2: Liu Huanhua (CHN) – 186 kg
3: Djuraev Akbar (UZB) – 185 kg

Akbar Djuraev from Uzbekistan ended this session with the following lifts: 180 kg on the first lift he did with success, the second attempt of 185 kg, which resulted in a good lift too. The last attempt resulted in no lift failing to cope with 189 kg. 

The second place went to Liu Huanhua from China. He made the first lift at 178 kg, which resulted with a green light. He made a 183 kg attempt on the second lift, and finished his performance with 186 kg, which he lifted confidently.

The first place went to Karapetyan Garik from Armenia who snatched 180 kg at the first attempt, but he failed to lift 186 kg at the second. For the last attempt he ordered the same 186 kg that placed him first after Snatch.

Snatch results:

Summarizing the Snatch session, we can confirm that the pressure was noticeably growing among contenders, as everyone wanted to take their desirable medals.

The majority of the participants had 2 of 3 failed lifts during their performances, failing both second and third attempts. Don Opeloge from Samoa failed all three lifts of 170 kg missing his chance to become a medalist of the 102-kg category.

But, the biggest shock was the performance of the supposed leader namely Meso Hassouna from Qatar who also bombed out from the competition. He was very close to a good lift on all three attempts in Snatch, but didn’t manage to lift the desired 178 kg. So, he failed to repeat his Tokyo Olympic result.

Clean & Jerk

The contest in the Clean & Jerk started with a weight of 190 kg. This impressive session brought us the following Top 6 lifters who have already proved their lifting skills:

4: Chkheidze Irakli (GEO) – 214 kg
5: Garik Karapetyan (ARM) – 212 kg
6: Montano Lesman (BRN) – 211 kg

Top 3 leaders’ results

Let’s describe the performance of the Top 3 lifters:

1: Liu Huanhua (CHN) – 220 kg
2: Akbar Djuraev (UZB) – 219 kg
3: Tsikhantsou Yauheni (AIN) – 219 kg

Tsikhantsou Yauheni secured third place in this battle: his first attempt to lift 214 kg resulted with success; on the second attempt he coped with 219 kg. On the final attempt he wanted to jump by nine kilos lifting 228 kg, however, he couldn’t lift this weight.

The second in this session became Akbar Djuraev from Uzbekistan. Today he started his performance with 219 kg he did successfully, then he ordered 224 kg, but it resulted with no lift. His final attempt to lift mind-blowing 230 kg resulted with no lift.

Liu Huanhua from China became the winner in the 102-kg weight division. He started from 220 kg which he lifted easily. However, his second lift of 228 kg wasn’t successful, as well as the third lift of 235 kg resulted in red lights. Still, he became the leader in this round.

Clean & Jerk results:

The Uzbekistani lifter tried to put pressure on the Chinese lifter and kept him at his sight.

However, Liu performed firmly  at the Clean & Jerk with 220 kg at the first attempt. Having ordered extra eight kilos, he lifted the bar. The judges didn’t accept this attempt because of the incorrect position of arm extension.

Liu wanted to break his World record in total of 413 kg he set in Phuket this April. Unfortunately, the attempt of lifting 235 kg resulted in no lift. 

At the same time, Djuraev didn’t want to fall behind Liu, so ordered 224 kg on the second lift. But, this attempt resulted with no success. The same situation was with the last attempt to lift 230 kg trying to surpass his Chinese rival.

Total results

🥇 Liu Huanhua (CHN) – 406 kg
🥈 Akbar Djuraev (UZB) – 404 kg
🥉 Tsikhantsou Yauheni (AIN) – 402 kg
4 Garik Karapetyan (ARM) – 398 kg
5 Chkheidze Irakli (GEO) – 393 kg
6 Montano Lesman (BRN) – 392 kg

The gold medalist in the category became Liu Huanhua from China who did 406 kg overall.

The silver medalist became Akbar Djuraev from Uzbekistan who finished with 404 kg. However, in Tokyo he was competing in the 109-kg weight category. 

Tsikhantsou Yauheni took bronze thanks to his total of 402 kg.

Final thoughts

Today’s performance in the Men’s 102 kg category presented us new leaders in the Top 3 moving aside long-time winners and Olympic heroes. These Olympic Games were a failure for the Olympic champion Fares Ibrahim who capitulated this time out of the battle for the medal.

What about new records? Unfortunately, the Men’s 102-kg weight category was out of new records. No one managed to break records.

All in all, the Chinese team prevailed in the heavyweight division as well, bringing another gold to the country.

Stay with us on the last day of the Olympic Games in Paris to know first who will lead the super heavyweight divisions. 
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