Liao Guifang drops to second: Secures silver in both lifts of the 71 kg Women’s competition.

Approaching the seventh day of the ongoing IWF Grand Prix II, Liao Guifang emerged as the first runner up in the Women’s 71 kg division, earning her a silver medal to join her other accolades on the shelf.

For her, this performance might have fallen below expectations, being the current World and Asian Champion with two fantastic world records. However, it was still a great win for China, seeing that she was only beaten by Song Kuk Hyang, a fellow 2023 Asian Games champion, with a total margin of five points.

In the Snatch exercise, the world champion went head-to-head with Olivia Reeves for the silver spot, maintaining a razor-thin lead with a gap of just 1 kg. She finished with 116 kg, after scoring in with 108 kg and 113 kg on the first and second tries respectively, falling 4 kg short of her performance in Riyadh earlier this year.

The clean and jerk exercise was a close shave between the top three contenders, and Liao successfully finished in 2nd position with 148 kg, closely following Song with 149 kg, and leading Olivia with 147 kg. 

Summatively, Liao earned a silver medal for the division, finishing with 264 kg, which is a notable drawback to her World record of 273 kg  at the World Champs in Riyadh. Although Liao beat Olivia Reeves with a narrow gap, the American had a more substantial to celebrate, as she achieved her career-best total, finishing with 262 kg. 

Liao Guifang, born October 5, 2001 has emerged as a rising star in her career and established herself as a world record holder earlier this year. Despite finishing fourth in the 2022 World Championship, the Chinese star doubled up this year to win an astounding world record with two gold medals in the 2023 Asian Championship.

She has impressively proven herself to be a formidable contender and an athlete to watch out for in the upcoming events.

After the competition in Doha, Liao and her teammates will be warming up for the Asian Championship and Olympic Games in Paris next year, where she will fiercely attempt to retain her current status as World and Asian Champion.

Thus far in the competition, China maintains the lead with 15 medals in total, 8 of which are solid gold medals. Curious to see what countries follow after China?