Landmark win for Liao Guifang boosts her Olympic hopes

Liao Guifang claimed her third world title and gave China its fifth winner at the IWF World Weightlifting Championships in Ningbo. She set three world records in clean and jerk and total, winning at 86kg by 19kg. 

If the favourite Li Yan wins the women’s super-heavyweights on Sunday, China will equal PRK’s tally of six golds.

Liao’s wins have all been at different weights and at a record-breaking range of 15kg, from 71kg three years ago to 81kg in 2024 and 86kg today. She made all six lifts for 128-163-291, beating the world standard total by 2kg.

Alina Marushchak was second for Bahrain on 123-149-272, up 7kg on her total when she was second at the Asian Championships this year.

Yudelina Mejia from Dominican Republic, who was so close to beating Solfrid Koanda in last year’s World Championships, finished third for Dominican Republic on 119-147-266.

There were four 20-year-old juniors in the A Group, including the American Ella Nicholson who finished fourth and took snatch bronze on 120-145-265, a huge personal best in international competition.

Nicholson, who was was twice junior world champion at 76kg, weighed in 2.5kg light. She said, “I prepared very well and was excited with that, a good start to the quad. I’m ready to push for more now.”

Anamjan Rustamova from Turkmenistan, who won this year’s junior world title at this weight on 257kg, was fifth on 118-146-264.

Europe had 18 of the 38 entries across three sessions – and the standout performance came in the C Group when Madias Ngake from Great Britain outperformed the other 17 to finish seventh.

Ngake made a career-best 113-140-253 at the age of 34. Her previous best came at the London 2012 Olympic Games, where she won a bronze for Cameroon. Ngake moved to Britain and was out of the sport for more than 10 years before her international comeback at the 2024 World Championships, where she won a snatch bronze and finished eighth.

Emma Poghosyan, the 20-year-old European senior champion from Armenia was ninth and Yekta Jamali from Germany 11th.

In the IWF World Cup in Thailand in April 2024, Liao was competing against Olivia Reeves and Song Kuk Hyang at 71kg. Now Song, the top female performer in Ningbo, is breaking records for PRK at 69kg, Reeves is raring to go at 77kg in Qatar after a back injury, and Liao has gone all the way up to 86kg.

There has been no Olympic gold to go with her world titles because Liao was up against Reeves in Paris qualifying. China’s selectors decided there were better chances in other categories and did not select Liao. All three women in China’s team won in Paris, as did Reeves for the United States.

Liao can clearly cope with moving up and down the weights and has a better chance of making the Olympic team this time around.

After the team leaders decided she should move up – a “highly calculated decision” according to state television – Liao started with a 283kg total at the national women’s championships in April.

She cut down to win the Asian 77kg title a month later in only four attempts, then went back up to 86kg to win another major domestic competition and the ‘Best Lifter’ award on 288kg, within a kilo of the world standard total.

“During my previous record-breaking cycles, the pressure to maintain weight was immense,” said Liao, who was “genuinely happy” with the move and her results.

Yesterday was her career-best international total by 12kg. She weighed in at 85.35kg.