Jang Wants Nothing Less Than Gold

South Korean weightlifter Jang Mi-ran is considered a surefire candidate for the podium. / Korea Times

By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter

By her lofty standards, anything less than a gold medal would be a failure for South Korea's weightlifting premier Jang Mi-ran.

However, as seen by Korea's 24-year Olympic gold streak in women's archery coming to an end Thursday, perfection is never an easy promise to deliver.

Jang, the silver medalist at Athens four years ago, had been considered a surefire candidate for the gold in the women's over 75-kilogram class with the Chinese team choosing to leave her rival Mu Shuangshuang off its Olympic roster due to entry limits.

It's hard to imagine any other athlete challenging the 25-year-old Korean for the throne in Saturday's final. Jang currently shares the world record of 319 kilograms with Mu and claims to have lifted 330 kilograms ― 140 kilograms in the snatch and 190 kilograms in the clean and jerk ― in a training session in Seoul last month.

Ukraine's Olha Korobka and Samoa's Ele Opeloge are expected to be Jang's nearest competitors, but Korobka managed to lift 290 kilograms only twice in her career and Opeloge never lifted more than 270 kilograms.

So Jang standing anywhere other than the top of the podium would be considered an even bigger upset than a normally unflappable Park Sung-hyun shooting a last-minute eight to cost herself the archery gold.

Jang remains confident of bagging the gold and her only concern seems to be about improving her world record.

``Jang Mi-ran is fully aware of the love and attention she is getting from the Korean public, and she is planning something big for Saturday," said Oh Seung-woo, the coach of the South Korean women's weightlifting team.

``If she manages to avoid big mistakes, we can expect a good result Saturday. She is a favorite for the gold, but she is an athlete who sets up her own standards.''

Jang's dominance in the over 75-kilogram category makes it easy to forget that she came 2.5 kilograms short of the gold in 2004, when China's Tang Gonghong won the competition with a then-world record of 305 kilograms.

This time around, Jang is eager to show the world that she is second to none, and plans to do that by not merely edging her competitors but blowing them out of the water.

Jang boasted last year that her goal in the Olympics was to lift 340 kilograms, and her unofficial record last month indicate that she is coming close to achieving her goal.

Mu currently holds the world record of 139 kilograms in the snatch, while Tang's 182 kilograms still stands as the best in clean and jerk. Jang insists she could do better in both.

thkim@koreatimes.co.kr

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