Award Ceremony for the World's Best Lifters in 2014: Kashirina and Ilyin

The Lifter of the Year 2014 Awards were presented to Tatyana Kashirina and Ilyin Ilya at a Ceremony held in Astana, Kazakhstan.

Early this year, the world's weightlifting-loving public was invited to vote online - on the IWF's website - whom they consider as the absolute best weightlifting athletes in 2014. The most votes were received among the women by Russian Tatiana Kashirina, and among the men by Kazakhstan's Ilya Ilyin.

The prestigious ceremony taking place at the National Museum of Kazakhstan was attended by IWF President Dr. Tamas Ajan, 1st Vice President Nicu Vlad, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Berdibek Saparbayev, Minister of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Kazakhstan Arystanbek Muhamediuly, Chairman of the Combat and Strength Sports Confederation of the Republic of Kazakhstan Timur Kulibayev, President of the Weightlifting Federation of the Republic of Kazakhstan Zhanat Tussupbekov, Russian Weightlifting Federation President Sergey Syrtsov and other dignitaries.

World Weightlifting Magazine Editor-In-Chief Kornel Jancso, and Senior Editor, Aniko Nemeth-Mora gave the trophies to Kashiina and Ilyin, while the public had the chance to relive the most amazing lifts of the incredible athletes in a short video from the 2014 IWF World Championships Almaty.

Ilyin Ilya (KAZ) talking about his preparation for Rio 2016: There is 1,5 year left before the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and there are challengers and contestants who can go up with their results by then. David Bedzanyan and Ruslan Nurudinov are definitely to be followed closely. I must be very serious with my training before Rio – I know that my results from Almaty won’t be enough.

When talking about this year’s competitions, Tatyana Kashirina (RUS) said: I will participate in the 2015 IWF World Championships Houston and definitely try not to miss this important meet because it give me more confidence in the lead up to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Additional information regarding the Award

Since 1982, World Weightlifting, the official magazine of the IWF (International Weightlifting Federation) has organised worldwide elections of the previous year's best lifters. At the beginning, the voting was only for the men; the first woman winner was elected in 1991.

The Lifter of the Year election was initiated by the late Jenő Boskovics (Hungarian), the founding Editor-in-Chief of the magazine. After his death in 2010, World Weightlifting created a Challenge Trophy in Memoriam Jenő Boskovics. The same Trophy – one for Men, one for Women – has been awarded annually ever since to the Best Male and Best Female Weightlifter of the World. Every year, the new names are engraved on the Trophies.

In the year of the 2012 Olympic Games the winners came from the London Champions: Zulfiya Chinshanlo of Kazakhstan and Behdad Salimikordasiabi of Iran. Likewise in 2013, the World Championships in Wroclaw made the biggest influence on the voters, when they elected Kashirina and her compatriot Russian Ruslan Albegov. In 2014 once again the year's peak event, the Almaty World Championships shaped most voters' opinions.

Repeater in 2014, Tatiana Kashirina performed splendidly throughout the year, however, it was at Almaty2014 when she achieved her extraordinary performance winning her (+75kg) category with incredible new world records: five altogether. Counting with good right as the Strongest Woman of the World, the Russian lady triumphed with the biggest difference in total among all the categories; marking an historic 193kg clean and jerk world record and 348kg overall.

A very similar parade was staged by the male Trophy winner, Ilya Ilyin of Kazakhstan. Two-times Olympic and four-times champion llyin amazed his audience and the world in the 105kg category with a stupendous 242kg clean and jerk world record, taking also the total gold medal.

The highest number of votes behind Kashirina was given to triple world champion Zulfiya Chinshanlo, one of the home favourites, who set a new world record in the 53kg clean and jerk.

There was only a very narrow difference in the number of ballots cast for the third place; finally, the position was won by Chinese Deng Wei, who thus beat her two country-women, Deng Mengrong and Tan Yajun.

Among the men,Ilyin’s victory could not be questioned, while in second place we find China’s Olympic and world champion, Almaty2014’s 69kg hero Liao Hui. Liao Hui set world records in both snatch and total.

There was a big fight for the third best position in the Lifter of the Year voting: finally out of the World Championship protagonists Russian Ruslan Albegov emerged as the winner. Bronze medallist at the London Olympic Games, Lifter of the Year in 2013, Albegov collected votes thanks to his success in the +105kg category at Almaty2014, with which he continues to count as the Strongest Man of the World.

Many voters put their votes also for Iranian Kianoush Rostami, Kazakhstan’s Zhassulan Kydyrbayev and Vladimir Sedov, Uzbek Ruslan Nurudinov, the junior world record-man Thach Kim Tuan of Vietnam and both North-Korean Olympic and world champions, OmYun Chol and Kim Un Guk.

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