Light-Heavyweight (≤69 kilograms), Women

China’s Xiang Yanmei entered the women’s light-heavyweight tournament at the 2016 Summer Olympics as the favorite, having won the 2013 and 2015 World Championships. Doping concerns helped leave Zhazira Zhapparkul of Kazakhstan, the 2014 and 2015 runner-up, as the only other recent World Championship medalist in Rio, while Armenia’s Nazik Avdalyan and Great Britain’s Rebekah Tiler, first and third respectively in 2016, were the only recent European medalists.

Xiang and Zhapparkul posted the best results in the snatch portion, with 116 and 115 kg respectively, while Egypt’s Sara Samir, the reigning African and Arab champion, positioned herself in third with a lift of 112 kg. In the clean and jerk, Xiang lifted 145 kg in her second round and, although she failed to lift 147 kg in her third try, Zhapparkul, who had struggled to post 140 kg, did not attempt to catch up. This assured Xiang the gold medal and Zhapparkul, who successfully lifted 144 kg, secured silver. Samir had lifted 143 kg, which would have given her silver had Zhapparkul failed at 144 kg, but instead she settled for bronze. This made Samir the first Egyptian woman to receive an Olympic medal (Abir Abdulrahman retroactively received silver from the heavyweight weightlifting division at the 2012 Summer Olympics after the three medalists from that event were all disqualified for doping concerns, and later received bronze in the light-heavyweight division of the 2008 Games for similar reasons) and the first Egyptian to win an Olympic weightlifting medal since 1948 (with the same caveat as above).