Lasha Talakhadze (Georgia) Dominates Men’s 102+ kg Weightlifting, Winning Gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics

Lasha Talakhadze won the gold medal at this year’s Olympics in Paris, after he lifted a stunning 470 kg and showed true dominion over his weight category (102+ kg).

It comes as no surprise, since this became his third gold Olympic medal, after his dominant golds at Rio 2016, and Tokyo 2020. This makes Talakhadze the first three-time Olympic champion in superheavyweight (2016, 2020, 2024), as well as the first Georgian three-time Olympic gold medalist.

Furthermore, the Georgian is the sixth lifter with the rare three Olympic golds to his name. All of these are historic achievements.

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While back in Rio Lasha set a WR by lifting a total of 473 kg, in Tokyo even more impressively, Lasha won by a gargantuan margin of 47 kg from silver (he also set WRs in snatch, c&j, and total that year).

The only surprise in this year’s Olympics was that no new records were set by the Georgian legend.

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Snatch

Lasha opened up with a 210 kg snatch and had no issues with the movement. Lalayan (silver) and Minasyan (bronze) managed to keep up with the Georgian.

From this point, it was clear that Talakhadze, Lalayan, and Minasyan were the main contenders for the podium. Talakhadze increased the weight to 215 kg on his second attempt. However, on his last attempt, he failed to stabilize the 220 kg snatch. 

This left him with two out of the three lifts successful, and positioned Minasyan from Bahrain narrowly ahead going into the clean and jerk segment, setting the stage for a tightly contested battle between the three.

Clean and Jerk

The Clean & Jerk started off in a similar fashion, where the medalists started off with the heaviest weights on their first attempts. Talakhadze kicked it off with a 247 kg C&J. On his second attempt, he went for 255 kg. 

Due to his comfortable lead, Talakhadze made the strategic decision not to attempt his last lift. This left him with a combined lift of 470 kg, and ultimately, the gold medal.

At 30 years old, Lasha Talakhadze has even further carved his name into legend and solidified his legacy with a triple Olympic gold, a seemingly unattainable dream by most professional weightlifters. Remarkably, consider the stunning fact that he has not competed for almost a year with his last event being the World cup in September 2023. 

Besides his Olympic achievements, the epic weightlifter holds numerous WRs, as well as won seven straight Worlds (2015, 2017, and more since 2019).

This year’s superheavyweight category was truly dominated by the medalists, who towered high above their competitors. The Georgian Olympian had 3 kg more in total ahead of the silver Lalayan’s 467 kg total, and 9 kg more than the bronze Minasyan’s 461 kg total.