Heavyweight II (≤110 kilograms), Men

This class had been held at the Olympics since 1972 but was somewhat different in 1980, with the addition of the heavyweight I class (≤100 kg). The favorites were Soviet Leonid Taranenko and Bulgarian Valentin Khristov. At Montréal in 1976, Khristov had seemingly won the gold medal until he failed a doping test after the competition and was disqualified. He took the lead in Moskva with a snatch of 185.0 kg, leading Taranenko by 2.5 kg, but Taranenko stunned with a world record clean & jerk of 240.0 kg, 20.0 kg more than Khristov, and won the gold medal with world record total of 422.5 kg as Khristov hung on for silver. Taranenko would return to the Olympics in 1992 as a super-heavyweight and won a silver medal.