Korean weightlifting champion hopes to see injured rival back for Olympics
Park Hye-jeong competes in the women's +87kg weightlifting final at the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou in China's eastern Zhejiang Province, Oct. 7. AFP-Yonhap
When China's weightlifting world record holder Li Wenwen withdrew from the Asian Games on her home soil because of injury, her Korean rival Park Hye-jeong quickly emerged as the strong gold medal favorite.
And Park, 20, lived up to the pre-competition billing Saturday, winning the gold in the women's +87kg class at the Hangzhou Asian Games with a total weight of 294kg -- 125kg in the snatch and 169kg in the clean and jerk.
Park insisted after her victory that the absence of Li, whose world record of 335kg remained intact, didn't make her feel any better.
"I wasn't happy that she wasn't competing here. I've been injured myself, and I know how tough it must be for her to be on the sidelines," Park said after capturing her first Asiad gold medal at the Xiaoshan Sports Centre Gymnasium in Hangzhou. "I hope she recovers for the Paris Olympics next year and shows everyone what she's capable of."
Li injured herself during the world championships in Saudi Arabia last month, and pulled out after two snatch attempts. That opened the door for Park to grab her first career world title with a total of 288kg. Park was able to build on that momentum to win the gold medal here Saturday.
"I am happy to have won the Asian Games gold right after the world championships," Park said. "I tied the national record in clean and jerk, but I still have ways to go in snatch. I want to improve on my snatch record and get to 300kg in total weight."
Park became the first Korean champion in the heaviest weight class in women's weightlifting since Jang Mi-ran in 2010. Jang, currently vice minister of culture, sports and tourism, is considered Korea's greatest female weightlifter of all time, a case augmented by her 2008 Olympic gold and four world titles.
Park has been called the second coming of Jang for years, and the gold medal Saturday validated at least some of that hype.
"I was under pressure to end that 13-year gold medal drought," said Park, the 2022 world junior champion. "But I wanted to prove that South Korean weightlifting could be competitive, and I pushed myself really hard. It feels great to have all that hard work paid off in this gold medal." (Yonhap)