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Tuesday, 30 July, 2002, 19:31 GMT 20:31 UK
Sarkisian and Ibrahim clean up
Malaysia weightlifter Amirul Ibrahim and veteran Australian Yourik Sarkisian were the stars at the men's weightlifting on Tuesday.
Ibrahim broke three Commonwealth Games records on his way to a clean sweep of medals in the men's 56kg category.
And 41-year-old Sarkisian proved he still had enough left in the tank to match Ibrahim's gold medal haul in the 62kg class.
The former Olympic silver medallist equalled his own Commonwealth record of 125kg to win the snatch and won the hearts of the crowd with his boundless enthusiasm.
A lift of 152.5kg was then enough for gold in the clean and jerk which gave him a comfortable overall victory for a third gold medal.
And Marcus Stephen of Nauru, who has won all seven of his country's Commonwealth Games gold medals since the Games' inception in 1930, had to settle for three bronze medals this time.
Earlier, 20-year-old Ibrahim had brought the crowd at the Manchester International Conference Centre to its feet with a classy performance in the lightest class.
First up in the snatch event - where the bar is lifted in one continuous movement - Ibrahim managed 115kgs.
He followed that by breaking the existing record by five kilograms in the two movement event of the clean and jerk with a lift of 145kgs.
Those lifts gave him a Games best overall total of 260kgs.
The young Malaysian was visibly thrilled by his performance and he fully deserved the generous applause of an appreciative crowd.
"To win all three has surpassed my wildest dreams," he said.
India pair Thandava Muthu and Vickey Batta also set new personal bests as they took the other overall medals.
Muthu took silver with a 245kgs total while the bronze went to Batta with 242.5kgs
Muthu also collect silver in the snatch category and a bronze in the clean and jerk, while Batta took silver in the clean and jerk.
The snatch bronze went to Mohad Baharom of Malaysia.
Ibrahim's triple-gold success puts Malaysia on course to surpass their 10 gold medal haul at the Kuala Lumpur Games four years ago.
22 Jul 02 | Weightlifting
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