For some time I was wondering what my next in-depth project would be
and then I saw the news today that Giancarlo Stanton and the Miami Marlins
agreed to a 13 year, $325 million dollar contract. To be brutally honest, I could not believe
the headline. Yes, I know that many
people say that but I’m not one of those people. When I heard a few days ago that in
negotiations, the $300 million figure was being thrown around, I never thought
it would actually go anywhere. Even if I
accept the premise of a $25 million annual salary (which I thought he would
eventually get), I never thought it would be for even 10 years. Alas, I have a bunch of number crunching to
do before I write more about MLB roster construction.
What just finished, however, were the 2014 IWF World Weightlifting
Championships in Kazakhstan with the last weight classes lifting early Sunday
morning (Colorado time). I didn’t watch
all of the weight classes but I did watch three in particular and then watched
bits and pieces of the others. The ones I
watched? Heavyweight men’s and super heavyweight
men’s and women’s. What can I say? I really like watching a steel barbell bend and it just doesn’t do that at
lighter weights.
It was a thrill to watch and there were quite a few world records
broken but I’m going to highlight the classes that I watched, which included
two of the more amazing sequences I can imagine at a weightlifting meet.
MEN’S 105 KG CLASS
One step below my weight class had one of the most phenomenal sequences
I’ve ever seen. It was a star-studded
affair even without one of the biggest names in the class, Andrey Aramnov (who I
heard was out with a minor injury), who set three world records (snatch, clean
& jerk, and total) at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. There was Ruslan Nurudinov of Uzbekistan, the
22 year old 4th place finisher in London, David Bedzhanyan of
Russia, who broke Aramnov’s world record in the clean & jerk, and Ilya
Ilyin of Kazakhstan, a previous world record holder in the 85 kg class and a
current world record holder in the 94 kg class.
For those of you who are not familiar with the format of weightlifting
competitions, it goes in order of ascending weight and ascending lift
number. In other words, if both you and I
are slated for a clean & jerk weight of 200 kg but you have lifted once and
I’ve lifted twice, you will lift before me.
You are allowed to change your weight before attempting a lift a handful
of times and this is where gamesmanship often comes in. If it is your turn to lift but you’d like
more time or you want to put pressure on someone else you’re competing with,
you can change your weight to 201 kg.
Because I now have the lighter weight, it is my turn to lift. I can repay the favor by changing my weight
to 201 kg and back and forth it can go until one of us either runs out of allotted
changes for that lift or just goes out and makes an attempt.
This is exactly what happened between Ilyin, Nurudinov, and
Bedzhanyan. They were the only three
lifters with clean & jerk weights over 230 kg by a wide margin (4th
place finished at 222 kg and was done lifting when the top three men had only
made one of their nine combined attempts).
While watching a broadcast with Chinese commentating, I was able to hear
the loudspeaker in the arena in English and several times in rapid succession,
a lifter and a weight would be announced and then almost immediately changed.
Ilya Ilyin was the first to attempt a world record lift with his second
attempt at 239 kg. After missing it,
Nurudinov followed it up with a successful attempt at the same weight, breaking
Bedzhanyan’s world record and giving him a sizable 9 kg advantage over Ilyin
for first place in the class.
His record lasted less than two minutes. David Bedzhanyan took back his record by
cleaning and jerking 240 kg, putting him in second place ahead of Ilyin but
behind Nurudinov.
His record lasted just about
as long:
Not only did Ilya Ilyin’s 242 kg clean & jerk break yet another
world record, it also moved him into a tie with Nurudinov. Since he weighed in slightly (0.43 kg) less,
Ilyin claimed the title. Often times, a
single lifter will be ahead of the pack chasing a world record on their
own. Seldom is a record broken only to
have it broken again on each of the next
two lifts.
AN ODE TO ILYA ILYIN
The Kazakh lifter has carved out what will go down as one of the
greatest careers in weightlifting history.
He set world records and won a world championship in the 85 kilogram
class. He then moved up a weight class
(to 94 kg), won two world championships, won two Olympic gold medals, and set a
world record in the clean and jerk. When
I did not see his name in the starting list in the 94 kg class, I assumed that
he had either withdrawn from the competition or had weighed in too heavy and
was bumped up to the 105 kg class. I was
wrong on both counts. Despite standing
only 5’9”, he bulked up to 104.35 kg, just below the threshold for the weight
class and, just as he had done at the lower weight classes, he won a
championship and set a world record in the clean & jerk.
This could potentially set up a world championship meet in 2015
featuring four men who have all held the clean & jerk record for the weight
class at some point. Considering that
three of the four will be 27 and Nurudinov will be 24 that has the potential to
be a truly epic weight class.
TATIANA, THE RUSSIAN TITANESS
Of the 15 combined weight classes, the majority were very close
affairs. 11 of the 15 were won by 5 kg
or less and three of them had to come down to body weight since they were
tied. On the other end of the spectrum
was Tatiana Kashirina of Russia.
Her first snatch attempt was 5 kg above the best mark from any other
lifter.
Her second snatch attempt set a new world record.
Her third snatch attempt broke that record.
Her first clean & jerk set a new world record total.
Her second clean & jerk set a world record in the individual lift
and broke her own total world record.
She retired rather than take her last attempt with three world records
(and an additional two records that she eclipsed with later lifts), a world
championship, a 28 kg margin of victory, and the largest jump in the world
record total (14 kg, from 334 to 348) in any weight class, men’s or women’s,
since the classes were redefined in 1998.
Not bad work for just five lifts…
THE SUPER HEAVYWEIGHTS
Last but not least (quite the opposite in terms of body weight) was the
men’s 105+ kg class. It may not be the
deepest class out there but the top three lifters are all in their mid-20’s and
appear poised to challenge the standing world records.
Perhaps the most promising is Aleksei Lovchev of Russia. Just 25 years old, he won the clean &
jerk portion of the competition by completing 257 kg, five better than second
place. Unfortunately, he failed in all
three of his snatch attempts and did not qualify for the overall title. He made headlines a while ago when he
completed a 220 kg snatch from high blocks in training (6 kg better than the
current world record).
Considering that he also completed a 212-256-468 (snatch-clean &
jerk-total) in competition earlier this year, he is certainly one of the top
lifters amongst the super heavys.
The youngest of the three is Iranian Behdad Salimi who holds the world
record in the snatch at present. While he
did fail in three of his attempts (including one that would have won the snatch
and another that would have tied for the top spot in the clean & jerk), he
still posted the second best total and had he been successful in his final
attempt, he would have taken home the gold.
Which brings us to Russian Ruslan Albegov, bronze medalist from the
London Olympics. He hit lifts of 210 kg
in the snatch and 252 in the clean & jerk for a total of 462 which was 14
kg better than his performance in London.
With these three all still very young, future competitions should be
spectacular.
NEXT YEAR…
Unfortunately, the next world championships are a year away. However, they will be in the United
States! They are scheduled for November
20-29 in Houston and you can bet that I will do all I can to attend.
I do believe that that is enough of me rambling. If you’re interested in watching any of the
groups from this year’s championships or the London Olympics, for that matter,
they are all on YouTube. However, the
videos that I watched from this year’s competition were not in English (Chinese
and Russian actually) but for me personally, I don’t really need commentary to
enjoy the lifting.
Until next time…
No comments:
Post a Comment