In super-heavyweight weightlifting the walls have ears – and torsos and legs Neal Collins There are 10 men lined up on stage in front of me, ready for the men’s super-heavyweight weightlifting. From Russia, Latvia, Armenia, Korea, Ukraine (two), Germany, Poland and even Qatar and Iran. Like massive peas in a prodigious pod, this multinational gathering look like brothers with elephantine thighs, biceps like a buffalo, no necks and no hair. Come to think of it, do buffaloes have biceps? Either way, these guys would easily outwrestle the average bison. These walking walls take their sport very seriously, to the point where several have been found taking drugs which will radically damage their hearts, ruin their kidneys and shorten their lives by years. None of these guys here of course have been caught taking anything naughty. There are no Romanians nor Bulgarians left in this competiton, which is the premiership for weighlifters, open to anybody over 105kg. The fact that they’re lifting 180kg to start the snatch half of the event is nothing. The lighter men, earlier in the week, have been snatching twice their own body weight. The crowds have been flocking to the weightlifting. Down in the depths of the Convention Centre in Sydney’s packed Darling Harbour, the queues for tickets go around the block. They come for the lively music, the chalking ritual, the solemnity of the timing system, the absolute joy of achievement. But they also come for the pain. Two nights before, I saw a Russian dislocate his elbow, a Ukrainian pop his knee joint and, awfully, a Pole dislodge one of his vertebrae in the under-105kg division. Imagine if tennis players honed their skills and their physiques to the point where they could serve fast enough to endanger each other’s health. Or if footballers were able to break goalkeepers with the force of their shot. That is what weightlifting has become. Andrei Chemerkin is the heaviest athlete at these Games, a good 30kg heavier than the controversial shot putter CJ Hunter, at 174,84kg. He’s so muscular he looks obese. I can understand people lifting weights to tune their muscles, to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger – but this? These men are monsters. On the beach, in swimming costumes, they would frighten young children.
Chermenkin has just lifted 200kg. Korea’s Tae-Hyun has matched him – and he’s nearly 40kg lighter. Chemerkin broke the world record to win gold in Atlanta four years ago. He’s just lifted 202,5kg, equalling the Olympic standard.
Then out comes the Iranian, Hossein Rezazadeh (22), at 147kg, one of the lightest men in the event. He hadn’t bothered to lift until 205kg, equalling the Olympic record. And up it went, with apparent ease (though the face was scarlet, the legs shaking, the veins in his arms standing out like cables). Suddenly we’ve got four or five of them, all lifting 205kg. Only Ashot Danielyan fails. Weakling. No, I wouldn’t say it to his face. So he’s failed. What does he do? He asks for 207,5kg. A new world record. The 26-year-old from Armenia gets it over his head, reddens, then lets it crash to the floor behind him. But does he give up? Does he buggery. He comes out and, despite the concentration-breaking trill of a cellphone, he does it. With verve. We all roar. It’s a bloody world record. I’m loving it now. So Rezazadeh demands something more challenging. A mere 210kg. And he fails. The Qatari, Jaber S Salem (25), also fails. Then out comes Mr Charisma of the event, German unofficial world record-holder Ronny Weller (31). He was beaten by Chemerkin in Atlanta. He looks nearly human. He even has some hair. He does it. World record. Yes! Rezazadeh of Iran then demands 212,5kg. He’s all over the place. His right arm is failing. But he gets it up, so to speak. And holds, and holds. Yes! World record. Phew. That’s part one over. And we’ve got the clean and jerk to come. Rezazadeh leads the way. He hasn’t dislocated anything, yet. The jerk starts on 220kg. They can lift even greater weight this way, when the legs take most of the strain. Artem Udaychin of the Ukraine fails. He needs smelling salts, the blood has rushed from his head to his bulging thighs. He comes out and does it second time around. We’re up to 230kg. The bar actually bends under the strain. Once one lifter has called for a weight increase, the next one has to carry on, the bar never gets lighter. So they go to 240kg. The Pole Pawel Najdek does it, his right arm nearly collapsing. Gennadiy Krasilnikov, the 1997 world junior champion, retires from the competition. His body has given up. We go to 242,5kg. That’s three times my weight, and I ain’t skinny anymore. The Korean lifts it, they go to 245kg. There’s not a spare seat in the auditorium, about 4 000 are packed in. We’re up to 250kg. Salem emerges, he sniffs smelling salts, they slap him hard on the shoulders: he’s there. The real heavyweight, Chemerkin, hasn’t even started yet. So he comes out and jerks 250kg quite easily. The snatch leader Rezazadeh talks to Allah, then does the same. So does the German, Weller. The crowd love him, though he looks like a beach ball with legs. The world record is 262,5kg. We go to 255kg. The Qatari is first through, he moves into second place on combined snatch and jerk. Rezazadeh, world record-holder in the snatch, takes on 255kg. If he does it, his combination of 212,5kg and 255kg will be a world record-breaking 467,5kg. He does it! Record! Weller, to cheers, comes out to take on 257,5kg. He screams, he reddens, he equals the world record and goes ahead because he’s lighter than the Iranian.
Up to 260kg. Chemerkin does it, but he’s still 5kg behind because he snatched less than the rest. Razazadeh prays loudly, lifts, does it, sinks to his knees with another world record for total weight of 472,5kg. Weller takes it up to 262,5kg. Success will mean he lifts an identical total weight but he would have grabbed gold as the lighter lifter. But no, it’s failure, three red lights. He blows kisses to the crowd. Korean Kim takes the bar up to a new clean and jerk record of 265kg. It will give him overall silver and great kudos. He fails. Chemerkin goes for a ridiculous 272,5kg a full 10kg heavier than the jerk world record, attempting a repeat of his record-breaking epic in Atlanta. He can’t get it up to the clean stage, let alone the jerk. Hossein Rezazadeh has won Iran’s second gold medal. The crowd go wild. I like it. I think. But I’ll probably stick to plate lifting.