2024 Olympic Games, Day 5 Recap – Women’s +81 kg: Chinese Wenwen Revalidates Her Olympic Title with Three Golds 

Today was the last competition day in weightlifting and the last day of the Olympic Games overall. We witnessed the performance of the super heavyweight division of Women +81 kg weight category, which closed weightlifting sports for the first time.

However, as usual, the heavyweight male category was the last one at the Olympic Games.

Day 5 proved the raw strength of female weightlifters from the +81-kg weight class who were competing till the very end without compromising their ranking.

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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It’s supposed to be an intriguing performance as the last three medals were at stake on the culminating day. Today female lifters showed extreme weights, so, we got considerable weight gaps between the category’s leaders. Let’s observe this competition and determine the winning lifts in each exercise. 

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Athletes’ presentation

Twelve female weightlifters from the super heavyweight division were performing at the last day of the Olympics trying to get an award-winning medal. We can highlight four most talented athletes who stood out from the rest.

Li Wenwen, a Chinese athlete who is the 2020 Olympic gold medalist in the +87 kg division, and is also the current world and Asian champion. She holds the current world record in Snatch of 148 kg, Clean & Jerk of 187 kg, and a total of 335 kg. 

Park Hyejeong, a weightlifter from South Korea who is a gold medalist at the 2023 World Champs, 2024 Asian Championships, and also at the Asian Games. She’s a first-time Olympian.

Due to the three gold medals she won at the 2023 World Championships, she was the first lifter from the Republic of Korea to reign the women’s super-heavyweight division at a Worlds.

CAMPBELL Emily, a British weightlifter who in 2021 became both European champion and the first British woman to win an Olympic medal, namely silver at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

In 2022, she won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games with a new Commonwealth Games record. Campbell is also a three-time gold and bronze medalist at the European Champs. While at the World Champs, she took silver in 2022 and bronze in 2021.

Theisen Lappen Mary Anne is a first-time Olympian, a silver medalist in the Clean & Jerk and total on her World Champs debut in 2023. She also won three Pan American titles in the +87kg weight class. What is more memorable, she set a USA record in the +87-kg weight class with a C&J in 2022, breaking the record set by two-time Olympic bronze medalist Sarah Robles.

Snatch

The performance in the Snatch exercise started from 100 kg. The competition promised to be fierce as nobody wanted to give up from their spots.

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

4: Ayovi Cabezas L. (ECU) – 123 kg
5: Theisen Lappen Mary (USA) – 119 kg
6: Chaidee Duangaksorn (THA) – 120 kg

Top 3 leaders’ results

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

1: Li Wenwen (CHN) – 136 kg
2: Park Hyejeong (KOR) – 131 kg
3: Campbell Emily (GBR) – 126 kg

Emily Campbell from Great Britain ended this session with the following lifts: 119 kg on the first lift, the second – 123 kg that she performed successfully, and the last lift of 126 kg was also positive.

The second place went to Park Hyejeong from Korea. She made the first attempt at 123 kg which was successful. She made a 127 kg lift on the second attempt that resulted in a green light. She finalized her performance with a 131 kg attempt, she secured well.

The first place went to Li Wenwen from China. Her opener of 130 kg was successful, then she vordered the weight for 136 kg at the second attempt. She refused to continue her performance, stopping at the second lift which brought her dominance in this exercise.

Snatch results:

Summarizing the Snatch round, we can state that it was a decent competition as all participants tried their best to lift their best weight and show their progress. Indeed, we saw minimum red lights, no bombed-out attempts, and equal battle between the super heavyweight lifters.

Chinese Li Wenwen proved once again that she deserves being a leader in the category, jumping ahead of her opponent at the second place by four kilos in the Snatch.

Her contenders Campbell and Hyejeong also performed 3/3 attempts, having a 5 kilos weight gap between their final lifts.

Clean & Jerk

The contest in the Clean & Jerk started with a weight of 133 kg. This decisive round brought us the following Top 6 lifters who didn’t want to fall out the rest of the group:

4: Ayovi Cabezas L. (ECU) – 160 kg
5: Theisen Lappen Mary Ann (USA) – 155 kg
6: Chaidee Duangaksorn (THA) – 152 kg

Top 3 leaders’ results

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

1: Li Wenwen (CHN)  –  173 kg
2: Park Hyejeong (KOR) – 168 kg
3: Emily Campbell (GBR) – 162 kg

Emily Campbell from Great Britain secured third place: she lifted 162 kg on the first attempt. At the second attempt and the final lifts, she didn’t cope with 169 kg and 174 kg, taking the risk to outperform the leader.

The silver medalist in this battle became Park Hyejeong from Korea. Today she started her performance with 163 kg, then she lifted 168 kg with success, and finalized with an attempt of 173 kg which she didn’t perform.

Li Wenwen from China became the winner in the +81-kg weight division. She started from 167 kg, then lifted 5 kilos more – 173 kg. However, her last attempt of 175 kg resulted in no lift.

Clean & Jerk results:

This round brought us the following outcomes: it showed us lifters who were technically stronger, besides being explosive and quick in lifting movements. There were more failed attempts because everyone wanted to surpass their rivals ordering heavier weights. However, this tactic was bad: the hurry didn’t benefit them.

The Top three lifters, i.e., Campbell, Hyejeong, and Wenwen were competing with each other ordering weights with a minimal gap. So, even a small difference in the weights impacted today’s final performance.

Total results

🥇Li Wenwen (CHN) – 309 kg
🥈 Park Hyejeong (KOR) – 299 kg
🥉 Emily Campbell (GBR) – 288 kg
4: Ayovi Cabezas L. (ECU) – 283 kg
5: Theisen Lappen Mary Ann (USA) – 274 kg
6: Chaidee Duangaksorn (THA) – 272 kg

The gold winner in the category was Li Wenwen from China who did 309 kg overall, becoming ahead of her opponent on the second spot by 10 kilos.

The silver medalist became Park Hyejeong from Korea who finished with 299 kg.

Emily Campbell from Great Britain took bronze thanks to her total of 288 kg that was 11 kilos less than her opponent from the second place.

Final thoughts

The last day of this grand Olympic Games  displayed an impressive lifting session in the Women’s +81-kg weight category, where 12 female athletes were fighting for Olympic glory. 

The battle proved the solid determination, strong willingness, and inner power of the female lifters. Super heavyweight lifters of the Top 3 were competing till the end showing extreme weights.

It was definitely a tough performance where nobody wanted to lose a single opportunity to achieve the Olympic medal.

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