The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) brought a new and exciting event to Switzerland as the IWF Street Weightlifting Championship was held in the shadow of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters.
Fourteen athletes competed on seven teams, with each team having one male and one female weightlifter. The teams competing were Team Austria, Team France, Team Germany, Team Italy, Team Switzerland and two combined teams, Team International (Colombia and Great Britain) and Team Ambassador (Malta and Qatar).
Although the weather didn’t cooperate at first, the rain held off long enough for the competition to be completed, as the strong turnout of fans stayed patient and were treated to some world-class weightlifting.
Team Germany led the way after the opening snatch contest with 56.8 ROBI points, with Team Ambassador and Team Italy in close pursuit.
However, that ordered changed after the clean and jerk contest, as Team Ambassador, led by Qatar’s first Olympic gold medalist Meso Hassona and Tokyo 2020 Olympian Yazmin Stevens of Malta left no doubt who would be standing atop the podium.
Their clean and jerk total of 215kg gave them an overall total of 535kg and 891.9 ROBI points, easily securing the gold medal. Team Italy took home the bronze with 810.9 ROBI points, while Team Germany was able to hold on to a medal position. Their total of 807.3 ROBI points was good enough for bronze.