Chinese female weightlifters finally went head-to-head with opponents in the women's 58kg class yesterday at the World Weightlifting Championships in Dominica's Santo Domingo.

 

The category fielding 30 competitors featured the first encounter between a Russian and a Chinese favorite.

 

In the first part, Russian Svetlana Tsarukaeva defeated her Chinese opponent Qiu Hongmei by 1 kg in the snatch event, but Qiu took back the lead in clean and jerk, sweeping the total gold medal.

 

Qiu also attempted to break a world record in jerk, but she failed.

 

Meanwhile, Wandee Kameaim of Thailand became victorious in clean and jerk. Thus the women's 58kg celebrated three new world champions.

 

In the men's competition, China's Li Hongli won a snatch gold medal in the 77kg category and wound up with a silver medal in total.

 

Li showed a strong advantage in the snatch event, leading the group in the first two attempts and finishing with 167 kg despite his failure in the third attempt.

 

The situation changed, however, in the jerk event, where Li failed twice to finish with only 192 kg, standing fourth among the competitors.

 

The gold medal of the jerk event went to Vladislav Lukanin of Russia.

 

Turkey's Taner Sagir took the gold medal in total with 361 kg.

 

(CRI October 4, 2006)