Two-time Olympic weightlifting gold medalist Ilya Ilyin of Kazakhstan set a new world record Nov. 15 in Almaty en route to winning his fourth Weightlifting World Championship.
Ilyin snatched first place from Uzbek Ruslan Nurudinov, who minutes earlier had set a new record. Nurudinov eventually settled for silver with 432 kilogrammes (snatch 193 kg + clean and jerk 239 kg). Russian David Bejanyan took bronze with a total of 427 kilogrammes (127+240). Ilyin totaled 432 kilogrammes overall (190+242) to win the championship. Even though his result was similar to Nurudinov’s, Ilyin still won because he weighed less than his opponent.
The 26-year-old champion from the Kyzylorda region, however, says he would still like to break even higher records.
“I don’t want to stop at this point and I want to beat the record set by Yury Zakharevich or at least get close to it. That’s my goal,” he said after the tournament.
Ilyin admitted that clean and jerking 242 kilogrammes was a surprising result even for himself.
“A lot depends on your state of mind, a month and a half prior to the championship, I didn’t know what weights to pull and eureka, we decided 190 and 242 would bring us victory! And today we pulled it right on, it’s a miracle!” he said.
Later, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev phoned the new champion to congratulate him.
“The President congratulated me over the phone and I was really glad. He asked me about the record that I broke. His congratulations were coming from his heart. He also mentioned that we will meet and discuss this in person. I consider him a person that is close to me. It is thanks to him that I live and achieve these results. I am grateful to him for his support,” said Ilyin.
Kazakhstan finished third overall in the championship with North Korea second and China taking first.
China G -4, S-2, B-5, Total: 11
N. Korea. 4, 1, 3 Total: 8
Kazakhstan 3, 2, 0 Total: 5
