Guys... I wasn't gonna post again about weightlifting until the 10 day world weightlifting competition was over and I'd just summarize (because it could be a little annoying to see daily updates for non-weightlifting fans) but... I have to. I just have to.
Lu Xiaojun is one of China's weightlifting legends. Today, he became the God of weightlifting. And it's not just for how much weight he lifted; that's of little importance compared to the mental fortitude that it took to do what he did today. Of all the weight classes, historic and present, and all the weightlifters active and retired, so many insane feats of strength have been exhibited that just going off of that alone, you could never claim to be the absolute best. But today, Lu Xiaojun showed us something that we've never seen before in history and no one thought was possible.
At 35 years old, everyone knew that Lu was nearing retirement. A snatch specialist, he had lifted several world records, with 177kg snatch being his best when he was younger but today, he had only 171kg, which was good enough for gold anyway. After lifting the weight, he departed the platform holding his back. He was hurting and everyone could see. This old lion, even injured, gave one last mighty roar to take the gold in his master discipline before he was ready to bow out.
When Lu came out for the clean and jerk, he set the weight to a modest 191kg. It was obvious that for a man holding his back, even 191kg was an ambitious effort to get a total score placing in the top 5 while leaving the victory up to his very capable younger compatriot, Li Dayin. After Lu made 191, wincing in pain, he retired to the warm-up room with ice on his back and his coaches massaging him. He could hope for no better than this today.
After Li Dayin made 198kg, to everyone's shock, Lu Xiaojun, without any warm-up, 20 minutes laying on the ground motionless with ice on his back, got up and declared 205kg. It made no sense. Even when younger and without injury, Lu's best lift was 204kg. How is it possible for a 35 year old lifter to make a career competition best while not only visibly injured, but also without any warm-up? It's suicide to even attempt the lift and would almost certainly result in serious injury. It was not Chinese to do such a thing as Chinese coaches are always remarkably conservative with their athletes, pulling them from competition at the slightest hint of injury to prevent catastrophic failure.
Lu approached the podium, the audience and announcers in shock, and he makes the lift, stumbling off the stage to be aided by his coach at the stairs. 205 was his new best score. Lu Xiaojun had just made a personal best and a world record (in the total, not the clean and jerk) at age 35, injured, and without warm-up. The announcers gasped and could only repeatedly ask, "How?? How is it possible?"
Moments later, Li Dayin approached the stage. The youngster took 206 in order to take the gold medal away from Lu. It was surprising because instead of going for 207 to take the clean and jerk world record, which was not Chinese, he decided to try to take the gold away from Lu Xiaojun for just 1 kg of safety. He made it clear: we are both Chinese but weightlifting is not a team sport. Li Dayin was successful and Lu Xiaojun lost the WR and fell to second place.
That would have been well more drama and excitement than anyone would have thought to see but it wasn't over. Lu once again rises from his iced back-massage, and declares 207, an attempt at the clean and jerk world record, to make a non-Chinese record a Chinese record. People are silent with shock; there were no higher levels of shock and amazement left to express. It would have already been more than too much to make 205 in such a physical condition but to follow 205 with 207? It can't be done. He had to have completely exhausted himself on 205.
Suddenly, my Chinese livestream cut dark. I would normally bark at the screen for this, but I couldn't find anything left in me to do so. All I could muster was to open the live scoreboard. There it was, 207 displayed in black, meaning an attempt under way. Red was failure, blue was success. I waited staring into those pixels on the screen that comprised the 207. It stood there as still as I was. Nothing happened for 2 minutes… a long 2 minutes, and then... 207 flashed blue. I stood there frozen with one thought in my mind: ‘Lu Xiaojun is undoubtedly the God of Gods in weightlifting. No one else can compare, not now, not in history.’
This is a picture of him and his family as they greet him after the medals ceremony with Lu Xiaojun sweeping all 3 golds in the men's 81kg division. His wife, Guo Xiyan, is also a professional weightlifter.
The tally so far today is that out of a total of 24 gold medals in the Olympic classes, China had wrested 20 of them. That's right, 20 golds to China, 4 for the rest of the world.
Watch him lift here. Go to 1:19:30 to see him approach for his 205 lift. It is the beginning of the disbelief of the announcers as they struggle to describe the events unfolding. Watch it to the end and you will see that for 20 more minutes, even long after he was done, nobody could get over his feat. Dumbfounded, the announcers repeatedly mutter "How?" "How is it possible?" even when the camera had already cut to other things. This is unprecedented in weightlifting history.
