SEA Games 31: Vietnamese weightlifting player broke 2 record in 3 minutes
Weightlifter Lai Gia Thanh won the first gold medal for Vietnamese weightlifting at the SEA Games 31, when he showed his overwhelming performance in the men's 55kg event, by breaking the record twice in just 3 minutes.
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Weightlifter Lai Gia Thanh set a new SEA Games 31 record and defended his title in the men’s 55kg with a total of 268kg on May 19. He lifted a clean and jerk of 148kg, higher than his record in the previous SEA Games by 6kg. The Vietnamese weightlifter took lead in the snatch with 120kg.
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| Lai Gia Thanh completed his part perfectly. (Photo: Bui Luong) |
Lai Gia Thanh, born in 1998, is the defending champion in the men's 55kg weightlifting category. At the 2019 SEA Games, he won the gold medal with a total of 264kg, in which he achieved the 122kg push and 142kg lift. That is also the SEA Games record in this weight class.
Lai Gia Thanh is considered the No. 1 candidate in this weight class at the SEA Games 31. Even at the registered weight level, Lai Gia Thanh has surpassed his opponents with 120kg of push and 150kg of jerk. Thanks to that, he was ranked last and was able to adjust his parameters after the opponents had finished. In the jerk competition, the athlete from Bac Ninh easily surpassed the weight of 116kg, then 120kg, but failed at the weight of 123kg. This is the highest achievement among 6 athletes competing.
Moving on to the push-pull part, the election of Somboon-uan Thada of Thailand was successful at 135kg right from the first time. A Filipino athlete also successfully pushed this weight. In the 2nd push, while the Thai athlete succeeded at 139 kg, the Filipino opponent failed at 138 kg. Meanwhile, on the first push, Thanh succeeded at 141 kg.
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| Lai Gia Thanh shouted with joy as he brought home the first gold medal for Vietnamese weightlifting at the SEA Games 31 and broke the Games record. |
With this weight, the Vietnamese athlete had a total weight of 161kg and almost won the gold medal, while the remaining competitors competed for the silver medal. After the competitors have completed their part, Lai Gia Thanh had 2 push moves left. The second time, he registered a weight of 145kg and successfully lifted it. This achievement helped him break his own SEA Games record set 3 years ago.
After 3 minutes, Lai Gia Thanh returned to perform the last push test with a registered weight of 148kg. With great efforts and instructions from the coaching staff, Thanh succeeded, thereby breaking his own SEA Games record for the second time. The weightlifter from Bac Ninh shouted with joy as he brought home the first gold medal for Vietnamese weightlifting at the SEA Games 31 and broke the Games record.
Somboon-uan Thada of Thailand bagged the silver medal with a total of 256kg while Mohamad Aniq Kasdan from Malaysia took the bronze (252kg).
Meanwhile, Khong My Phuong clinched a silver in the women’s 45kg. Although she broke the previous SEA Games record set by another Vietnamese weightlifter Vuong Thi Huyen in the snatch with 80kg, Phuong only managed a lift of 92kg in the clean and jerk.
Thanyathon Sukcharoen of Thailand triumphed in the category with a total of 174kg.
Viet Nam targets two gold medals in weightlifting of SEA Games 31.
