EMOTIONAL RIZKI LOOKS AHEAD AFTER RECORD

Indonesian claims weightlifting gold as fancied Chinese suffers disastrous collapse

- 

PARIS Indonesia's Rizki Juniansyah won an "emotional and beautiful" men's 73kg weightlifting title at the Paris Games on Aug 8 with a total of 354kg, setting the Olympic record in the clean and jerk as China's reigning champion Shi Zhiyong failed to finish.

Rizki lifted 155kg in the snatch to put himself in a good position and then strained every sinew in the second round of the clean and jerk with a 199kg lift that secured gold.

The real battle was for second, with Weeraphon Wichuma taking silver from Bulgarian Bozhidar Andreev.

The 19-year-old Thai lifted 198kg in the clean and jerk to finish with 346kg, just 2kg ahead of Andreev, but a whopping 8kg behind Rizki.

"I am happy, proud and very emotional winning with this, my first gold medal and creating history. Thank you to all the Indonesians for their support, to those who are watching at home," the 21year-old Indonesian said.

"There are no words that can describe how I am feeling. You saw me crying because it's been such an emotional and beautiful experience, and I am already looking towards the future."