Russia’s weightlifter Khadzhimurat Akkaev has brought his country a fourth gold medal at the World Weightlifting Championships in Paris with a 105kg division.
The 26-year-old reigning European Champion traded lifts with his 28-year-old teammate Dmitry Klokov, the Beijing Olympic Silver medallist. And the pair left noroom for anyone else in what became a two-horse race.
Klokov took the lead with his third snatch attempt of 196kg, only to be surpassed by Akkaev who succeeded with 198kg to take the lead over Klokov going into the clean and jerk.
In the final round, Klokov achieved 232kg on his last attempt, meaning all the lighter Akkaev had to do was to take the same weight to collect all three gold medals, which he ultimately did.
The bronze medallist, Ukrainian Oleksiy Torokhtiy, trailed the winner by a whole 20kg.
This was the first time the two Russians had faced each other in competition and the one-two result gives their team a very strong hand in the 105kg category for next year’s Olympics.
Meanwhile, in the 94kg category, Ilya Ilyin of Kazakhstan got the better of Ruslan Nurudinov from Uzbekistan, with 18 year-old Iranian Saeid Mohammadpourkarkaragh taking bronze.