Fares tops Qatar Cup weightlifting

Qatar’s Fares Ibrahim Hassouna and Taipei’s Kuo Hsing-Chun pose with their trophies after topping the men’s and women’s points charts in the 5th International Qatar Cup Weightlifting Championships in Doha. Fares, who swept the 96kg class, had 856.1611 points in aggregate, finishing ahead of Rejepbay Rejepov (833.1268) of Turkmenistan and Doston Yokubov (822.2037) of Uzbekistan. In the women’s section, Kuo bagged 945.0241 points while China’s Luo Xiaomin and Zhang Yujuan finished second and third respectively with 829.1091. Fares praised the role played by the Olympic Committee under the chairmanship of HE Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad al-Thani and the Qatar Weightlifting and Fencing Federation headed by Mohamed Yousef al-Mana for the continued support. Kazakhstan topped the men’s team standings while China won the women’s title. As many as 130 weightlifters from 35 countries (61 women and 56 men) took part in the event which was one of the qualifying tournaments for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.