Li Wenwen, the highest-quality teenage talent in weightlifting, became the reigning Olympic and international champions in the first two international competitions of her career this year.
Now 19 years old, Li had not entered a significant opposition until 14 months ago.
But she ought to circulate to the top of the superb heavyweight Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games scores by winning her first international identity in the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Junior World Championships in Fiji, her first competition overseas.
Anyone without an in-depth knowledge of country-wide-level younger lifters in China could by no means have heard of Li until February this year when she made a sensational worldwide debut by finishing ahead of the Russian world champion Tatiana Kashirina in the IWF World Cup in Fuzhou.
In her second opposition, some weeks later, Li finished her crewmate and Olympic champion Meng Spring well beforehand to win the Asian Championships in Ningbo—and broke Kashirina’s senior seize world record in the process.
The Junior World Championships in Suva, which run eight days from Saturday (June 1), could be her 0.33 international contest and her first at the junior stage.
Her super efforts this year have given Li all three junior international data at super-heavyweight.
Her overall quality of 325kg, plus that 147 kg international report snatch, makes her a sturdy favorite to win gold.
Li changed into noticed in Anshan’s quiet town by using coach Guan Yongmei on a recruitment excursion of Liaoning province.
She was inspired by Li’s mindset and her massive fingers and feet. When Li commenced weightlifting at the age of 12, she should grasp 50kg and clean and jerk 70kg.
Two years later, she moved to Fujian province to join the team, using the phenomenally successful teacher Chen Wenbin; Heor earned her place in China’s countrywide group in September after appearing well in three Senior and Junior National Championships.
Li has excelled continuously in her education; however, Guan suggested that she was not ready for opposition before the end of April.
In her first senior appearance, Li lifted an impressive 316kg. After winning the Chinese junior title (315kg) in May, she completed ahead of Meng at any other national competition, lifting 325kg.
Guan, who has been teaching for greater than 30 years, is a professional at building up young lifters, prioritizing power over technique at the outset, and loves to teach heavyweights.
She hopes that some of her athletes will compete in the Olympic Games, and Li, who is now guided via countrywide crew instruction, maybe the first to achieve this if she can keep improving over the following 12 months.
With so many pinnacle-ranked women in several Olympic weight training events and the possibility of Meng returning to pinnacle shape, Li still has a lot of work to do if she is to take one of China’s four locations for girls in Tokyo.
But Li can overtake Meng as her United States of America’s top contender in a weight class. China has a perfect file, having won gold four times in the 5 Games because girls’ weightlifting changed brought to the program.
Another brilliant, extraordinary heavyweight, the 20-12 months-antique Iranian Ali Davoudi, who also began lifting at the age of 12, is the favorite at the age of the men’s event.
Like Li, Davoudi received the Asian Championships in Ningbo and held all three junior international facts, with 197-237-432.
He won a countrywide identify elderly sixteen, after which he become invited to join the senior countrywide team.
“The tougher the training became, the greater I became fascinated,” he stated.
With Behdad Salimi retired and Saeid Alihosseini out of the reckoning, Davoudi is Iran’s pinnacle contender among the terrific heavyweights. However, they have the handiest two men’s places in Tokyo.
“Thinking of the Olympic gold medal and making my circle of relatives and the human beings of my us happy is the first-class encouragement for me,” said Davoudi, who received last year’s Junior World title with 419kg.
The United States, Italy, and South Korea are the nations hoping to continue their dazzling development and construction.
Three Americans have gold medal possibilities, although one in every one of them, Harrison Maurus in the men’s 81kg, has been getting better from harm again.
The others are the 73kg favored CJ Cummings, seeking his fourth immediate junior global name, and Kate Nye within the girls’ 71kg, wherein she has rated nicely ahead of her competitors.
Others have a risk of creating the podium, and the United States is hopeful of its unfortunate consequences.
“We have never received golds at the Juniors before,” said Phil Andrews, leader government of USA Weightlifting.
“If we will have two world champions and something from 3 to 5 medals, it would be superb for us and might give us an amazing examination wherein we are towards the relaxation of the sector.”
Italy also has a risk of its exceptional consequences and has high hopes for Lucrezia Magistris within the girls’ 55kg.
Genny Pagliaro and cutting-edge European champions Mirco Scarantino and Antonino Pizzolato all received many Junior World medals between 2004 and 2016, but none were gold.
Fiji could have had a very sturdy gold medal contender in Eileen Cikamatana, a silver medallist in 2017, but instead is fielding a weakened team.
Cikamatana is one among many lifters involved in a damaging dispute with Fiji’s countrywide federation. The federation wanted to employ a brand new teacher and pass the jacks from their home base in Levuka.
The dispute left Fiji without a countrywide team, but Peni Tawai, who led the competition to the federation’s plans, “said it has positioned us again 40 years”.”
When Cikamatana, 19, recently won 81kg at an interstate competition in Australia, her overall performance was described by Sam Coffa, the former IWF vice president who has been involved in weightlifting for more than 60 years, as “definitely sensational—I have by no means witnessed something find it irresistible.”
Cikamatana’s total of 268kg was a long way better than the pinnacle-ranked 81kg lifters at world junior and senior degree; however, she is in limbo and does not characteristic in the Tokyo 2020 scores.
The next time Cikamatana competes, it will likely be for Australia, as she is now living in Sydney and has been given permanent residence.
