2024 Olympic Games, Day 4 Recap – Men’s +102 kg: Talakhadze Becomes Third-Time Olympic Champion

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

Twelve lifters were competing this evening, doing their best to outperform the opponents. This event became one of the most captivating.. To get the details stay with us and track the review of the +102 kg weight class.

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Athletes’ presentation

Twelve weightlifters demonstrated their ultimate determination and resilience to show the best results that will be hard to outperform and outshine in this tough battle. Due to skyrocketing performances, the competition between these giants was thrilling and tense as they were defending their titles.

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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The category’s constant warrior Lasha Talakhadze, a two-time Olympic champion, won gold at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. He is also a seven-time World and European champion. Currently, he holds world records in +109 kg in the Snatch, Clean & Jerk, and the total he set at the 2021 Worlds. Throughout his career, he set 26 official senior world records.

Lalayan Varazdat from Armenia, is a three-time medalist at the World Championships and a three-time medalist at the Europeans. He is a first-time Olympian who debuted in 2021 at the Worlds, where he won three silver medals in the +109 kg category. 

Gor Minasyan, an Olympic silver medalist at Rio 2016 and Youth Olympic Games silver medalist at Singapore 2010 representing Armenia. He’s also a four-time world championship overall medalist. Representing Bahrain, Minasyan won the Asian overall championship in 2022 and 2023. His ambition is to win the Olympic gold.

Eishiro Murakami, a first-time Olympian, and a  bronze medalist in the +109 kg division at the 2020 Asian Championships.

Snatch

As we predicted the category’s powerhouses ordered a minimum of 200 kg for their openers, so we spectated a tough competition. Here are the names of weightlifters who succeeded to get to the Top 6:

4: Davoudi Ali (IRI) – 205 kg
5: Rubaiawi Ali Ammar Y. (IRQ) – 200 kg
6: Asaad Man (SYR) – 197 kg

Top 3 leaders’ results

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

1: Minasyan Gor (BRN)  – 216 kg
2: Talakhadze Lasha (GEO) – 215 kg
3: Lalayan Varazdat (ARM) – 215 kg

Varazdat Lalayan from Armenia ended this session with the following lifts: 210 kg on the first lift he did with success, the second attempt of 215 kg, which also resulted in a good lift. The last attempt resulted in no lift failing to cope with 218 kg. 

The second place went to Lasha Talakhadze from Georgia. He made the first lift at 210 kg, which resulted in a green light. He made a 215 kg attempt on the second lift and finished his performance with 220 kg, which he failed to lift overhead.

The first place went to Minasyan Gor from Bahrain who snatched 210 kg at the first attempt, then continued to lift 216 kg at the second. For the last attempt, he ordered the same (as Talakhadze) +4 kg but failed this chance to lift 220 kg.

Snatch results:

Concluding the Snatch round, we can confirm that the supposed leaders showed almost equal weights on the bar. The ordered weights were even with minimal weight gaps as no one wanted to make a tactical mistake. Gor made an interesting move with jumping to 216, so Talakhadze abs Lalayan had to answer on it to fight for the lead. 

There were minimal red lights for most attempts: just one athlete from Algeria bombed out the battle, while the rest were highly determined to show their best. However only 4 athletes managed to lift their third Snatch attempt. 

By the way, the Iraqi lifter Rubaiawi set a new Junior World Record in Snatch lifting 200 kg.

Clean & Jerk

This legendary session brought us the following Top 6 lifters who showed their mastery and stubborn nature to achieve the best result.

4: Davoudi Ali (IRI) – 242 kg
5: Asaad Man (SYR) – 241 kg
6: Rubaiawi Ali Ammar Y. (IRQ) – 237 kg

Top 3 leaders’ results

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

1: Lasha Talakhadze (GEO) – 255 kg
2: Lalayan Varazdat (ARM) – 252 kg
3: Minasyan Gor (BRN) – 245 kg

Gor Minasyan from Bahrain secured third place in this battle: his first attempt to lift 245 kg resulted in success; on the second attempt he tried to lift 255 kg but failed. On the final attempt, he wanted to repeat the same 255 kg, however, this attempt resulted in no lift.

The second in this session became Lalayan Varazdat from Armenia. Today he started his performance with 247 kg he did successfully, as well as the second attempt of 252 kg. His final attempt to lift 256 kg resulted in no lift.

A real powerhouse Lasha Talkhadze from Georgia became the winner in the +102 kg weight division. He started from 247 kg which he lifted successfully. His second lift of 255 kg was a good lift too, but it took a lot of energy from Lasha to perform it. Although he refused to use his third attempt, becoming the winner in Clean & Jerk.

Clean & Jerk results:

We can state that almost all lifters failed their last attempts. The all-time triplet presented the tense contest defining who is more resilient and technically skillful. All in all, Lalayan was defeated by Talakhadze by three kilos. While Minasyan fell behind his Armenian rival by 7 kilos. The battle for the bronze took place till the end as few athletes tried to beat Gor’s result. 

Total results

🥇Lasha Talakhadze (GEO) – 470 kg
🥈Lalayan Varazdat (ARM) – 467 kg
🥉Minasyan Gor (BRN) – 461 kg
4 Davoudi Ali (IRI) – 447 kg
5 Asaad Man (SYR) – 438 kg
6 Rubaiawi Ali Ammar Y. (IRQ) – 437 kg

The gold medalist in the category became Lasha Talakhadze from Georgia who did 470 kg overall. It was 22 kilos less than he did at the 2021 Worlds. He became one of six athletes in history who won 3 gold Olympic medals in weightlifting.

The silver medalist was Lalayan Varazdat from Armenia who finished with 467 kg. 

Gor Minasyan from Bahrain took bronze thanks to his total of 461 kg. He won the first medal in weightlifting for Bahrain.

Final thoughts

Today’s performance in the Men’s +102 kg category finally presented us with the exact list of the most powerful super heavyweight athletes who lifted fantastic weights this evening.

What about new records? We have one athlete from Iraq Rubaiawi who set two Junior World Records in Snatch and total. Speaking about the current leaders, they were far away from beating previously set records.

All in all, the battle was attention-grabbing and we witnessed a very close battle between three athletes for the gold medal. We haven’t seen such dense results in the super heavyweight division for almost a decade. 

Keep following our highlights and reviews of the last day of this championship where the Women’s super heavyweight division will compete to define the winners.

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