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Published on September 23, 2007

The two-time snatch defending champion had only himself to compete with after his first attempt, going for the highest weight of the 180kg. He then went for 185kg in the second and added two more kilos in the last call, clearing it to the crowd's applause.

Rybakou entered the history books with a mark of 186kg in the 2006 edition in Wladyslawowo, in the Dominican Republic.

He swept all three golds when he later lifted 206kg in the clean and jerk for a combined 393kg in the total.

"In every championships I try to improve my result. I have long been ready for this, because I had good results at home,'' said the 25-year-old, who failed to enhance his profile with an Olympic total record after failing to lift a 209kg in the clean and jerk. The current overall mark is 395kg.

"At the time I was a bit tired. I couldn't clear my head well enough,'' said the first athlete to break the world record in this year's edition.

Rybakou's overall result was 21kg higher than silver medallist Russian Aslambek Ediev, who snatched 172kg and cleaned and jerked 200kg. The 27-year-old lifter also took the silver in the snatch, despite an identical lift of 172kg to Bulgarian Georgi Markov. Ediev took the silver due to his lighter weight of 84.18kg, against Markov's 84.40kg.

The Olympic total bronze went to another Belarussian, Vadizm Sraltsou, with 370kg.

The clean and jerk silver and bronze medals were surprisingly taken by lifters from the B group. Oliver Ruiz of Columbia lifted an incredible 205kg to take second place, five kilos higher than third-placed Cuban Jadiel Valladares.

Lerpong Amsa-ngiam

CHIANG MAI

 The Nation