IWF Grand Prix II, Day 7 Recap – Men’s 89 kg: Nasar Reclaims the C&J World Record with 12 Kilos Ahead

Day 7 of the Grand Prix II in Doha was expected to be one of the most long-awaited competition days as two Olympic categories were determined to fight to settle the leading positions.

Indeed, the tense competition between 11 athletes in the Men’s 89-kg category was thrilling and breathtaking. At once 4 powerhouses met on the podium. Keep following us to receive all the updates about the upcoming battles at this IWF qualifying event.

Athletes’ Presentation

Eleven solid weightlifters were listed in the start list of this weight category. While four big names deserve great attention as they all create a history both for the world of weightlifting and for their countries alike.

Keydomar Vallenilla, a Tokyo Olympics silver medalist, gold and two-time bronze medalist at the World Championships, and two-time Pan Ams gold medal holder is ready to rock the 89-kg battle;

Antonino Pizzolato, the Olympics bronze medalist, and three-time European Champion, is set to rehabilitate after his bomb-out in the last World Champs in Riyadh;

Karlos Nasar is one of the youngest world record holders, who became champion in 2021 at the age of 17. He’s a total and two-time silver medalist at Europeans, four-time Youth European and World Cup Champion; 

and Andranik Karapetyan, a silver medalist of the European Championships.

The category’s leaders ordered an opening total in between 370 kg and 390 kg, so these athletes will hit the podium by pushing their limits to the maximum.

Snatch

The performance in the Snatch exercise started from 159 kg.

• 6: NASAR Karlos May – 170 kg
• 5: PIZZOLATO Antonino – 170 kg
• 4: KARAPETYAN Andranik – 170 kg

On this contest day, 60 % of all attempts were successful, which is an above-average rate.

Top 3 Leaders’ results

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

• 🥇LOPEZ LOPEZ Yeison  – 180 kg
• 🥈SANTAVY Boady Robert  – 172 kg
• 🥉VALLENILLA SANCHEZ Keydomar Giovanni – 171 kg

Keydomar Vallenilla won the bronze medal in this session by lifting 171 kg. The first lift was 168 kg, the second – 171 kg, and the last of 174 kg failed. To compare his previous Snatches: he performed his best Snatch of 178 kg at the South American Games in 2022. Today he repeated his World  Championship’s lift in Riyadh of 171 kg, which also brought him bronze in this round.

The second place went to Santavy Body Robert who snatched 1 kilo more than Keydo – 172 kg. He did the first attempt at 165 kg, by failing to push 171 kg on the second try, and finished with 172 kg-attempt. His last performance was at the Tokyo Olympics where he finished fourth in the 96-kg division with 181-kg Snatch and 212 kg in Clean & Jerk.

The gold medal went to Lopez Lopez Yeison who snatched 180 kg. He did 170 kg at the first attempt, 175 kg at the second, and resulted in winning 180 kg. His prior remarkable achievement was eight years ago at the Junior World Championships in 2016 where he impressed everyone with setting the Junior World Record in Snatch – 156 kg, Clean & Jerk – 190 kg, and a tota – 346 kg.

Snatch Results

Summarizing the Snatch session, we can admit that this round brought us unexpected results as the majority of the supposed leaders failed to rise higher to the Top spots. On the contrary, we saw new faces at the second and first places: Santavy Boady from Canada and Colombian Lopez Lopez Yeison respectively.

The only favorite of the category, namely Keydomar Vallenilla managed to secure bronze, just one kilo less than the silver medalist.

What about the other athletes from fourth to sixth places, they resulted with the same weight of 170 kg. The expected leaders who could show better lifts fell behind the Top 3’s: Andranik Karapetyan, Antonino Pizzolato, and Karlos Nasar failed their third lifts. So, as Karapetyan lifted first 170 kg, he got 4th place, Nino was 5th, and Karlos closed Top 6th accordingly.

Clean & Jerk

The contest in the Clean & Jerk movement started with a weight of 190 kg.

• 6: MEZINSKIS Armands – 203 kg
• 5: VALLENILLA SANCHEZ Keydomar Giovanni – 207 kg
• 4: PIZZOLATO Antonino – 210 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:

• 🥇NASAR Karlos May – 223 kg
• 🥈RO Kwang Ryol – 211 kg
• 🥉LOPEZ LOPEZ Yeison – 210 kg

Lopez Lopez Yeison secured third place by jerking 210 kg on the 3 attempt. His first attempt was 202 kg, then he added up the weight by 4 kilos and pushed 206 kg successfully. The final try was 210 kg, which is his personal best for the moment.

The silver medalist in this battle became Ro Kwang Ryol with a result of 211 kg on the third attempt. Today he started from 210kg, but couldn’t cope with this weight also on the second try. So, he decided to add just one kilo on the barbell to lift 211 kg at the third attempt.

Karlos Nasar became a gold winner with mind-blowing 223 kg as his best. He was unstoppable today by reclaiming his Clean & Jerk world record he set previously of 221 kg, but it was beaten by Tian Tao by 1 kilo. Today he prevailed over his rivals by 12 kilos in the session, so no other athlete could get close to his result.

Clean & Jerk results

This round was also pretty tense and full of unexpected moments, while we got a new World Record set by unbeatable Bulgarian Karlos Nasar. He succeeded to return the title of World Record holder he set at the European Championships in Yerevan.

Speaking about Nino’s and Keydo’s performances, it seemed that today wasn’t their lucky day and they didn’t lift at their best. It’s more likely that high psychological pressure influenced their performances. So, Pizzolato finished 4th with 210 kg jerk and Keydomar managed to lift 207 kg.

Total Results

• 🥇NASAR Karlos May – 393 kg
• 🥈LOPEZ LOPEZ Yeison – 390 kg
• 🥉PIZZOLATO Antonino – 380 kg
• 4 RO Kwang Ryol – 379 kg
• 5 VALLENILLA SANCHEZ Keydomar Giovanni – 378 kg
• 6 SANTAVY Boady Robert – 372 kg

The gold medalist in the category was Bulgarian Karlos Nasar who did kg overall. It was his second-best total result that is just 2 kg less compared to his World Record in Yerevan. Although he took gold again, proving his inner stability and power.

The silver holder was Colombian Lopez Lopez Yeison who got 390 kg in a sum of two rounds, showing his personal bests at the competition.

Antonino Pizzolato took bronze thanks to his total of 380 kg despite his 4th spot in Snatch and 5th in Clean & Jerk. But, in Doha, he didn’t improve his totals of 392 kg that was a World Record he set in Tirana at The European Champs.

Final thoughts

Today’s performance in the 89-kg division proved that even famous and experienced athletes can make a mistake, or be influenced by tough contests. Frankly speaking, Nino Pizzolato, Keydomar Vallenilla, and Andranik Karapetyan could perform better, but not this time. 

This competition brought us new winners who don’t have the same gut level and experience in competing at world-level championships as the above-mentioned athletes. 

Although Karlos Nasar did impress the audience today by performing an extremely strong and close-to-perfect Clean & Jerk of 223 kg by setting a new World Record.

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