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Women 58kg

Europe?s best Marina Shainova of Russia challenged her Chinese opponent Qiu Hongmei. In the snatch Shainova won and seemed to have gained enough lead (2kg) to break the Chinese streak of victories. Qiu, however, after two misses at 134kg, finally saved 135kg and outlifted the Russian with the necessary 3 kilos, capturing the jerk and total world titles.

Women 63kg

Here again, a facedown between Chinese Liu Haixia and her 7 years younger Russian challenger: Svetlana Tsarukaeva. Setting a new junior world record, Tsarukaeva managed to equal Liu in snatch (115kg), however, despite further two junior world records in total, the Chinese woman pulled off by seven kilos and she too set a new world mark of 257kg.

Women 69kg

In this category, the moment of glory finally arrived for the Russian candidate, Oxana Slivenko. For a change, it was in the clean and jerk that the Russian outlifted her Chinese counterpart, who was none less than Liu Chunhong, Olympic and multiple world champion, Best Lifter of the Century. Having recently recovered from an injury, Liu Chunhong was happy with the total silver, obviously hoping to turn it into gold by Games time in Beijing. Slivenko needed a new total world record of 276kg to achieve this historic win.

Women 75kg

The Russians came with the Zabolotnaya-Evstyukhina doubles to face reigning world champion Cao Lei from China. Despite a temporary victory in snatch for Zabolotnaya, the Chinese beauty scored a confident victory overall, totalling 286kg.

Women +75kg

Once again we could thank the pinnacle of the 2007 Women?s World Championships to the duel between Jang Mi-Ran (KOR) and Mu Shuangshuang (CHN). In a breathtakingly exciting battle, in which the lead changed lift by lift, finally we saw an ?encore? of the 2006 events: the Korean confirmed her world champion title with a new total world record of 319kg, again equalling the score of Mu but defeating her on bodyweight.

Men 56kg

There could not be a more exciting first competition for the men in ChiangMai. At first it looked quite ordinary with Li Zheng taking the snatch gold, although seriously challenged by DPR Korean Cha. In clean and jerk things turned as only marginal differences were to decide the final outcome. The Chinese suffered and had to give up the jerk medal, while Cuban Alvarez performed superbly and won the champion title on the lift. Meanwhile, thanks to solid performance in both parts of the competition, Cha Kum Chol of PRK captured the total gold medal on bodyweight.

Men 62kg

The China vs. DPR Korea duel went on. This time, Chinese Yang Fan was luckier, who collected the three gold medals, with Im Yong Su receiving all the three silvers. Their results were identical on all lifts, but the Chinese was 140g lighter.

Men 69kg

During his long journey from Paris to ChiangMai, Dabaya, defender of the world title, had hardly believed he would have to return to France with no medals captured in Thailand. As a matter of fact, he was seriously defeated. The two Chinese Olympic champions faced each-other for the first time and they shared the medals in a brotherly manner. As expected, Shi Zhiyong excelled in snatch, whereupon Zhang delivered a strong clean and jerk with three straight lifts and a result 9 kilos better than his compatriot’s. Zhang, who had his 33^rd birthday just 2 days before the competition could finally celebrate with a decent meal; up to that point he had been deprived such pleasures as he had to lose 7 kilos to fit into the category.