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Olympic Champions at the Junior Worlds

Korea?s second-largest city, Busan was the host of
the 11th Women?s and 31st Men?s Junior World Championships in May
2005.
Since the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, this was the first
world-wide rendezvous in the sport of weightlifting held in
Korea.

The standard of the organisation was worthy of the
best Korean traditions and matching the top level of Asian
weightlifting.
The juniors? meet was at the same time a premiere:
the first major event held under the new 1-kilo rule. Already the
first bodyweight category?s competition proved the International
Weightlifting Federation?s decision right.
The new progression
of the barbell?s weight opened new dimensions in the tactical game
and decided, in more than one case, the ranking between the
contestants.
The Championships produced the first world records
under the new rules. In the women?s field, Chinese Liu Chunhong (75
kg) set up a new senior and junior world record total with 273 kg.
Her 151kg in clean and jerk was also registered as a junior world
record.
Among the men, Ilya Ilin from Kazakhstan lifted the
first new junior world records: 206 kg in jerk, 374 kg in total.


Liu CHUNHONG, CHN set the first women’s world records –
both Junior and Senior – under the new 1-kilo rule

In previous years, many of the Junior World
Championship participants later turned into Olympic Champions. It
happened, however, for the first time, that two weightlifters who
already boasted Olympic gold medals came to participate in the
Junior Worlds. Two winners from Athens, Liu Chunhong (CHN) and Taner
Sagir (TUR) highlighted the Busan event and performed at an Olympic
level. Liu Chunhong scored an overwhelming victory, while the
Turkish Olympic Champion ? with no great effort ? won in a close
fight, yet proving his supremacy.



Taner SAGIR, TUR catered for high quality in the 77kg

The most surprising winners were:
? Shoko Sumida
in the 48 kg women ? with her, Japan won its first junior world
champion title;
? First ever women?s medal for Albania by Fetie
Kasaj ? in 53 kg, a silver medal;
? and for Kazakhstan ? Irina
Vlassova ? 69 kg, 3 bronze medals, and Alexandra Aborneva – +75 kg,
1 bronze medal.

The team classification was also very interesting:
Men ? CHN, KOR, RUS; Women ? RUS, KOR and JPN ? with China ranked
only fourth.
Forty per cent of the participating athletes were
submitted to anti-doping controls? some more than once during the
Championships.