After setting the world record in the snatch portion of the competition with a lift of 216 kilograms, Iran’s Behdad Salimi appeared to be one of the favorites to win the super heavyweight competition Tuesday night. But to focus on Salimi would be to ignore the fact that the reigning world champion was also in the mix, and in the end it was he who would take gold.
Georgia’s Lasha Talakhadze, who won last year’s Weightlifting World Championships, took gold with an overall weight lifted of 473 kilograms (just under 1,043 pounds). Talakhadze reached that mark on his final clean and jerk lift of 258 kilograms, breaking the world record set by Iran’s Rezah Zadeh in Beijing eight years ago by a single kilogram.