IWF Grand Prix II, Day 3 Recap – Men’s 61 kg: New Faces’ Triumphs and Leaders’ Withdrawal

Day 3 of the World Cup in Qatar. The TOP Athletes faced off on the platform to prove their excellence and close-to-the-ideal physical condition as only a few spots are available to qualify for Paris.

Men’s 61-kg division brought us intriguing results everyone hadn’t expected, namely several lifters succeeded in moving out of their groups by prevailing their group’s rivals. So, as a result, the top list of each round included athletes of Groups B and C.

Watch the spectacular performance and get to know the Top 3 athletes who rocked this battle.

In the upcoming weightlifting competition, the clear frontrunner in this weight category is the Chinese lifter LI Fabin, who has been undefeated in international competitions since 2019, including the Olympic Games and three World Championships.

He will face strong competition from his teammate, the bronze medalist of the last World Championship, DING Hongjie, and PAK Myong Jin who was just 3 kg short of LI Fabin’s total at the last Asian Championships. There is no doubt that the battle in this weight class will be fierce and uncompromising.

Five out of the eight competitors have declared a starting total of 300 kg, while the remaining three are not far behind, aiming for only 5 kg less.

The Snatch Round

The performance in the Snatch exercise started from 125 kg.

• 6: Shin Rok – 129 kg
• 5: KIM Chung Guk 130 kg – 130 kg
• 4: CENIZA John Fabuar – 133 kg

On this contest day, 46 % of all attempts were successful which is a below-average rate.

Top 3 Leaders’ Results

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

• 🥉PAK Myong Jin – 134 kg
• 🥈IRAWAN Eko Yuli – 136 kg
• 🥇LI Fabin  – 137  kg

The 3rd place was taken by Pak Myong Jin with 134 kg. He showed two successful lifts with the third one to be failed, namely the trying 136 kg. However, the second attempt brought him bronze in Snatch.

Indonesian Irawan Eko Yuli became a silver medalist in this round: he lifted 136 kg on the second attempt, with the last one showing a red light when lifting 138 kg.

Li Fabin showed high determination by lifting 137 kg at the third attempt. It was a remarkable Snatch that brought him 1st place. However, after his last winning attempt, he withdrew from the competition because of elbow pain.

Snatch results

Speaking about the successes of our leaders, we can state the following: Li Fabin didn’t reach his personal best result of 145 kg which is a current world record he set in 2019 at the Word Champs. Irawan Eko also showed the average weight he lifts in this exercise, almost approaching his previous result of 139 kg in Bogota 2022. While Pak Myong Jin missed only two kilos compared to his Youth World record at the Asians in Hangzhou.

By the way, Ceniza John Febuar who was 4th today, demonstrated his best Snatch of 133 kg despite his 135 kg ‘no lift’ attempt. His previous best lift in this session was 131 kg he did at the World Champs in Riyadh.

Another lifter, Kim Chung Guk improved his Junior World Record of 125 kg he did at the Junior Asian Championships in Hangzhou. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to get to the podium.

The Clean & Jerk round

The contest in the Clean & Jerk discipline started with a weight of 155 kg.

• 6: CHOMCHUEN Teerapat  – 162 kg
• 5: CENIZA John Fabuar  – 165 kg
• 4: KIM Chung Guk – 165 kg

33 % 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:

• 🥉MORRIS Hampton Miller – 170 kg
• 🥈MOHAMAD ANIQ Bin K.  – 170 kg
• 🥇PAK Myong Jin  – 171 kg

Morris Hampton took bronze with his lift of 170 kg. However, he didn’t manage to lift the barbell at the next attempts: trying to lift 174 kg twice, his efforts were in vain. 

Mohamad Aniq succeeded in securing silver with the same weight – 170 kg. By the way, all his attempts were successful. However, this athlete moved to the Group A rank from the Group C. Being the highest-ranked Commonwealth lifter in the overall standings, he participated at the Commonwealth Games where he  set a new Games record of 142 kg in Clean & Jerk, winning Malaysia’s first medal and first gold medal in the Games.

The Clean & Jerk winner became Pak Myong Jin by lifting 171 kg at the third attempt.

Clean & Jerk results

It needs to be mentioned that silver and bronze medalists moved from their Groups and succeeded to outrank the Group A lifters who were leaders in the Snatch round.

Li Fabin and Irawan Eko Yuli didn’t perform in this round at all. The reason is that Li got injured while snatching. So, such conditions affected the further rating and other, weaker opponents had an opportunity to improve their rating in the Clean & Jerk session.

Total results

• 1 PAK Myong Jin – 305 kg 
• 2 CENIZA John Febuar – 298 kg
• 3 MOHAMAD ANIQ Bin K. – 296 kg 
• 4 KIM Chung Guk – 295 kg 
• 5 MORRIS Hampton Miller – 292 kg 
• 6 CHOMCHUEN Teerapat  – 289 kg

This day the category was helmed by promising Pak Myong Jin who proved his power and persistence on the way to the gold medal. But, this time he showed a total of 2 kilos less compared to his 307 kg he performed at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou.

The second-best result was done by a talented Philipino weightlifter Ceniza John Febuar who lifted 298 kg. He managed to improve his personal best by one kilo.

Attempting to dethrone his contender, Malaysian Mohamad Aniq finished third with 296 kg. Compared to his results at the previous World Championships in Riyadh, he increased the weights and improved totals considerably by 5 kilos.

The Final Point

We have already been assured many times that every great competition is impossible without unexpected moments that can affect the whole scenario. This competition day in Doha proved it once again: even the most anticipated winners can be defeated or face unpredictable injuries. Li Fabin and Irawan Eko Yuli are bright samples for this statement.

Nevertheless, we had an opportunity to witness new leaders who competed at such high-level world events for the first time, and who succeeded to leave favorites behind miles away from the Top spots.

Leave your comments below about the following query: what the results would be if Li Fabin and Irawan Eko didn’t withdraw from the Clean & Jerk round? Share your opinion and make predictions for other outcomes.

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