- Sunday, 8 May 2022
Armenia led the medals table at the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Junior World Championships in Heraklion in Crete – but only for a few hours as Turkey claimed a second title of the week.
Garik Karapetyan made a six-from-six 170-200-370 to win the men’s 96 kilograms for Armenia for a second straight year, improving his winning total from 2021 by 15kg.
That was too good for last year’s 89kg champion Tudor Bratu, from Moldova, who failed with his second clean and jerk but made his five other lifts to finish with 163-201-364.
Karapetyan, who will be 19 next month, has never finished out of the first two in his five international appearances since 2019.
That result put Armenia ahead of Indonesia in the medals table, but they are back in second place after Turkey won the women’s 81kg to go top with two days to go, having won two golds, three silvers and one bronze on total.
The numbers were not high, and would not have won gold two categories lower at 71kg, but Dilara Narin’s 99-131-230 was enough to take the title.
That was a career-best total for the 20-year-old, who was youth world champion at 76kg in 2019 and holds the youth world record, at 130kg, in the clean and jerk.
She was also the Youth Olympic Games gold medallist at 63kg in 2018, and has competed at four different weights.
The Mexican Emmy Gonzalez took silver on her international debut with 100-127-227.
Egyptian teenagers took bronze in both events, Yasser Usama with 157-202-359 in the 96kg and Fatma Ahmed on 99-122-221 in the 81kg.