Asian Weightlifting Championships, Day 5 Recap – Women’s 71 kg: Song Guk Hyang Continues to Increase Her Country’s Top Ranking

Day 5 of the Asian Championships brought us unforgettable moments and outstanding lifts, which made this competition day one of the most thrilling and historical in the Women’s 71-kg Olympic weight category. The atmosphere is going to become more tense as we’re moving closer to the halfway point of this race and heavyweight categories with other big names.

Don’t miss a chance to witness an intensive battle between the leaders of the 71-kg weight division who are set to push their limits, improve their prior lifts, and hit Asian and world records. Watch the video till the end to find out who will reign today by celebrating victory for their country.

Top Athletes’ Review

Today twelve female lifters were on the podium showcasing their commitment and determination to get a winning medal and a quota for participation at the Olympic Games in Paris this summer.

Song Guk Hyang is a profound weightlifting champion who took gold in the 76-kg weight category at the 2023 Asian Games.

CHEN WEN-HUEI, a Taiwanese lifter who took bronze at the 2023 Asian Championships in Jinju. In 2020, she won silver at the Asian Champs in Tashkent in the 64-kg weight class. Also, she participated in the Olympic Games in Tokyo by winning bronze.

Mun Min-hee, the bronze medalist in the Women’s 75-kg division at the 2018 Asian Games.
Runa Segawa from Japan improved her Clean & Jerk national record of 129kg by one kilogram. Today she lifted 130 kg on the third attempt resulting second in the C&J session.

Snatch

The performance in the Snatch exercise started from 50 kg.

12: HANAN YMAH ALAMEER – 60 kg
11: MAI AHMAD ESSA AHMAD ALMADANI – 71 kg
10: Reihaneh Karimi – 88 kg
9: Fatemeh Keshavarz – 93 kg
8: INDAH AFRIZA – 95 kg
7: Runa SEGAWA – 100 kg
6: Vanessa P. SARNO – 100 kg
5: PHAM THI HONG THANH – 100 kg
4: TSABITHA ALFIAH RAMADANI – 102 kg

On this contest day, 64 % of all attempts were successful which is a above-average rate. 

Top 3 leaders’ results

Now let’s analyze the Top 3 lifters’ performance:

🥉MUN MINHEE – 102 kg
🥈CHEN WEN-HUEI – 108 kg
🥇SONG GUK HYANG – 115 kg

The bronze holder Mun Minhee from South Korea had two successful lifts: 97 kg on the first attempt, the second try of 101 kg was failed. While the third attempt of 102 kg brought her a bronze medal in the Snatch portion.

Chen Wen-Huei from Taipei got a silver medal with a good lift of 108 kg. Today she showed excellent performance with all three successful lifts: 102 kg on the first attempt, 106 kg on the second try, and the last try was a winning one.

The leader in Snatch became Song Guk Hyang who finished with a 7 kilos cushion ahead of the second place, namely 115 kg. Despite her first attempt of 115 kg, she accumulated her inner strength and lifted the same weight of 115 kg on the second attempt which brought her first place. She wanted to break the Senior World Record in Snatch of 120 kg, but unfortunately her third attempt of 122 kg  was not successful.

Overall, the lifters showed good results with a minimal rate of no-lifts: just four athletes had two red lights, while the majority performed successful lifts which was indicated as 64% of all attempts.

We also outlined the Top 7 athletes who were highly determined to occupy the leading positions. Thus, we witnessed tough competition between the athletes from the seventh to the third sports. The silver medalist surpassed the bronze holder by 6 kilos, while falling behind the winner by 7 kilos.

Clean & Jerk

The contest in the Clean & Jerk discipline started with a weight of _60_ kg.

12: HANAN YMAH ALAMEER – 65 kg
11: MAI AHMAD ESSA AHMAD ALMADANI – 86 kg
10: Fatemeh Keshavarz – 112 kg
9: TSABITHA ALFIAH RAMADANI – 115 kg
8: INDAH AFRIZA – 118 kg
7: PHAM THI HONG THANH – 120 kg
6: Reihaneh Karimi – 123 kg
5: Vanessa P. SARNO – 128 kg
4: CHEN WEN-HUEI –  128 kg

53_ % of all attempts in this exercise were successful which is a _below-average_ rate. 

Top 3 leaders’ results

Let’s describe the performance of the Top 3 lifters:

🥉MUN MINHEE  – 129 kg
🥈Runa SEGAWA – 130 kg
🥇SONG GUK HYANG – 154 kg

The South Korean lifter Mun Minhee took bronze lifting 129 kg from the second try. She started with a weight of 125 kg on the first try, then increased it by 4 kilos and succeeded in lifting the bar overhead. The last attempt was 132 kg, but she couldn’t cope with it.

Silver moved to the Japanese athlete Runa Segawa: she didn’t lift 124 kg on the first attempt, but then rehabilitated and succeeded in lifting the same weight during the second try. The third try was 6 kilos more, 130 kg which she lifted gradually and won the silver medal.

Song Guk Hyang reigned the session again by clinching second gold. The first attempt of 145 kg and the second of 154 kg were both successful and having a weight gap of an impressive 24 kg compared to the second place, she decided to withdraw from the third attempt.

The Clean & Jerk round was no less intensive than the Snatch session, however, we had more ‘no-lifts’. It’s not surprising as the atmosphere was pretty tense and intriguing since everyone wanted to occupy high positions in the category’s ranking.

A new Senior World Record in Clean & Jerk was set by Song Guk Hyang: she lifted 154 kg which is 1 kilo more than the previous record of 153 kg.

It needs to be mentioned that almost all athletes failed to cope with their third attempts, except the Japanese lifter, while all successful lifts were done on the first tries.

Total results

1 SONG KUK HYANG 269 kg
2 CHEN WEN-HUEI 236 kg
3 MUN MINHEE 231 kg
4 RUNA SEGAWA 230 kg
5 VANESSA P SARNO 228 kg
6 PHAM THI HONG THANH 220 kg

So, the category’s bronze holder became South Korean weightlifter Mun Minhee who got 231 kg in total, falling behind her rival from the second place by 5 kilos.

The silver medalist was Chen Wen-Huei from Taipei who did 236 kg in total which was 33 kilos less than her rival from the first place.

Today’s winner was Song Guk Hyang who finished her performance with the result of 269 kg in the sum of two exercises. Just 4 kilos left to shatter a new Senior World Record in total that Song Guk didn’t manage to achieve.

Conclusion

To summarize the performance in the Women’s 71-kg weight category, we can confirm that the competition was eye-hoking, with lots of thrilling moments. It wasn’t easy to foresee the whole ranking as there was an even battle and true competition between female lifters. Overall, all of them were of equal power and everyone had all chances to occupy a spot in the Top 6.

It was quite obvious to define the category’s favorites as the weight gap between the supposed leaders and the rest of the contenders was great enough to remain securely in their positions.

Keep watching our reviews to know first about the most interesting and intriguing moments of the most competitive Olympic categories and the most talented lifters to see the history created right now. Don’t miss the birth of new warriors who will become decent opponents to the category’s favorites.

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