Qatar’s Fares Ibrahim faced a disappointing end to his Olympic campaign in the newly introduced 102kg weight class at the Paris Games on Saturday. The 26-year-old, a key contender for Qatar’s medal hopes, was unable to lift 178kg in the snatch category, resulting in three failed attempts that disqualified him from progressing to the clean and jerk round.
Fares, who had previously made history by securing Qatar’s first-ever Olympic gold in the 96kg category at the Tokyo Games three years ago — an category not included at Paris Games — blamed his performance on a sudden elbow injury.
He apologised for the unexpected outcome, mentioning that this was the first time he had experienced such an injury. Despite this setback, Fares is committed to returning stronger at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics. “I apologise for the unexpected performance due to an elbow injury. This is the first time I felt this injury,” Fares told beIN Sports. “But this is not the end. I will return to achieve something in Los Angeles.”
His journey to Paris was marked by adversity, including a hip injury that hampered his training and forced him to miss the International Weightlifting Federation’s World Cup in April.
Meanwhile, China’s world champion Liu Huanhua put in a superb performance to win the gold with a total of 406kg. Liu lifted an impressive 186kg in the snatch to put himself in a good position, but Armenia’s Garik Karapetyan matched that on his third attempt to put pressure on the Chinese lifter.
However, the 22-year-old Liu came out strongly with a clean and jerk of 220kg on his first attempt. He later lifted an extra eight kgs but it was invalid due to an incorrect arm extension.
Liu then tried to break his world record total of 413kg set at the World Cup in Phuket, Thailand in April, to the rapturous applause of the crowd at the Paris Expo arena. But despite stretching every sinew, he could not secure the bar above his head for the jerk and dropped it to the mat.
Akbar Djuraev of Uzbekistan took silver with a total 404kg after only registering on his first clean & jerk with 219kg. Belarusian Yauheni Tsikhantsou, who was competing as a neutral athlete, won bronze with 402kg.
The men’s over 102kg weightlifting gold was won by Lasha Talakhadze of Georgia. Varazdat Lalayan of Armenia took silver and Gor Minasyan of Bahrain claimed the bronze.
