|You are in: Other Sports: Weightlifting|
Friday, 2 August, 2002, 13:16 GMT 14:16 UK
Karapetyn clinches clean sweep
Australia's Alex Karapetyn brushed his rivals aside as he powered to a clean sweep of gold medals in the men's 94kg weightlifting.
The Armenia-born lifter claimed all three titles on offer with an overall total of 365kg after dominating the snatch and clean-and-jerk disciplines.
England's David Guest clinched overall silver after taking silver in the snatch and fifth place in the clean-and-jerk.
And Canada's Julien Galipeau finished second in the clean-and-jerk to win overall bronze.
Scotland's Tommy Yule took bronze in the snatch and England's Karl Grant secured bronze in the clean-and-jerk.
Karapetyn only started both sections once everyone else had finished.
He waited until Guest had set a mark of 160kg in the snatch, with Yule just behind on 157.5kg.
Karapetyn then lifted 162.5kg to clinch gold before breaking the Games record of 165kg with an excellent second lift of 167.5kg.
Grant, who won bronze in the 105kg clean-and-jerk in Kuala Lumpur, repeated the feat with a lift of 187.5kg.
Galipeau's effort of 192.5kg was enough for silver before Karapetyn lifted 197.5kg on his first attempt.
The gold medallist then asked for a staggering 215kg to be put on the bar but it proved beyond him.
Overall silver medallist Guest admitted none of the other competitors had expected to get the better of Karapetyn.
"I knew I wasn't going to get gold. All of us knew we were going for silver basically,
"Tommy Yule pushed me a bit in the snatch and I was a bit surprised at that.
"But I got a big lead on the rest in the snatch and, with me having a lower body weight than a lot of others, I was in a good position for the overall."
Other top Weightlifting stories:
Links to more Weightlifting stories are at the foot of the page.
|E-mail this story to a friend|
Links to more Weightlifting stories