2023 Asian & PanAm Champs (not Games!)

[Elle]

Pei Xinyi is only 17 years old... amazing! She seems one of the best athlete of the next generation chinese team.

Kuo has something off: wobbling as usual in overhead position, but also during the cleans. Why didn't the judges immediately give the down signal once she put her knee on the platform with 135kg?

[erpel]

Pei CHN is 18*, born in January 2005 (not October). The AWC start book has transposed digits.

*https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E8%A3%B4% ... D/56974279

---
HE Yueji weighed 66.89, but DING Hongjie 61.20...? China being weird again.

[strapping]

Luo has the NR with 106, so not a PB. This was a good session.

Thanks, I tried to look up Chinese NRs but it wouldn't load for me. I should have checked wikipedia.

I don't agree with that view on Kuo, she always lifted like this. Sometimes stable with neat execution, sometimes off by 20% with no chance at holding heavier jerks.

Kuo has something off: wobbling as usual in overhead position, but also during the cleans. Why didn't the judges immediately give the down signal once she put her knee on the platform with 135kg?

I think she has always had this characteristic but never to this degree. She is apparently carrying some (unspecified) injuries.

As mentioned, Pei is 18 now. Very unsure how to feel about the fact that she's had less creepy comments simping this year and last year compared to when she was 16 at Chinese Nationals. Gross.

Anyway, my misgivings about men on the internet aside, Pei does have a good base to be introduced to the national team. No huge weaknesses or technical errors for the national team to make worse. I'm interested to see what happens but I'm not expecting any huge improvements. Many athletes only have slight improvements after passing from youth through to junior and senior. I would love be proven wrong though.

HE weighing 66.89 and DING 61.20 is just bizarre. Maybe we were all wrong, maybe he is actually eating food. Now go up to 73 and replace an injured Shi Zhiyong.

[strapping]

73kg placeholder
Chinese screaming man/shi zhiyong 2 had 140/170 listed, which looked too heavy given his rather difficult 160kg front squat in the training hall. After the athlete introductions, he withdrew from the snatches. Presumably to go to Namgang river for a bit of fishing.

Havana and Doha are both coastal cities with good fishing, we will likely need to wait for Riyadh 2023 or Asians 2024 (location TBD) to see him lift at all internationally.

I expect the guaranteed qualifiers to simply weigh in and withdraw (or put in a token total) at the World Cup in Phuket. Provided that he recovers (a strong assumption on weak evidence) and puts in the total he needs at 23' WWC or '24 AWC, I assume he will enjoy the fishing in Phuket.

73B recap: top total was 307, shi zhiyong fishing

73A snatches
expected TKM bomb x 1
YOKUBOV Doston UZB - 137, 141, 144x
REYIMOV Bektimur TKM 143, 147x, 147
BAK Joo Hyo KOR - 146, 149, 152x
JEERAM Suttipong THA - 145, 149, 152x
WICHUMA Weeraphon THA 146, 150, 154x
MIYAMOTO Masanori JPN - 148x, 148, 153
CHURKIN Alexey KAZ - 146, 151, 154
WEI Yinting - 150, 155x, 155

73A clean and jerks
REYIMOV Bektimur TKM takes 172 to open the session. Hard lift but he makes it and avoids the dreaded bomb x2. Takes 176, misses closely x2.
WEI Yinting goes out for 173? misses. 173 again, made but it's a struggle.
YOKUBOV Doston takes 175, easy.
JEERAM Suttipong takes 180 for a heavy opener, but grits through to make it.
181kg for 3rd attmpt of WEI Yinting. Hard clean, jerk is forward, no lift.
182kg for 2nd attempt of supposed "clean technician" YOKUBOV Doston, deadlifted.
Takes it again for a better 3rd attempt, scrappy pull but strong as hell in the legs and just about sticks the jerk.
185 for 2nd attempt JEERAM, hard clean and hard jerk.
186 brings out 4 openers.
BAK Joohyo KOR gets a moderate clean, great jerk on 186.
MIYAMOTO Masanori JPN makes a slightly misgrooved clean, sticks the jerk on 186.
WICHUMA Weeraphon THA, who now looks fucking enormous at 73, does the easiest clean on 186 and then fires the jerk up. Fast but a little unstable, good lift.
CHURKIN Alexey KAZ divecrashes under 186, stands it up easy and then yeets the jerk, good lift.

187 brings out JEONG Hansol KOR, gets under but can't rack the bar. Ambitious opener. Takes it again, racks and stands up this time. Close miss on the jerk. Gets his clock burned by JEERAM Suttipong, moves up to 188 *after* ??? Hard clean on 188, misses the jerk backwards. Plenty of power but what in the ever living fuck

189 brings out SUTTIPONG Jeeram. Hard clean, misses the jerk behind but looks content with himself.
190 for BAK Joohyo, does a good clean but can't quite come through in the jerk and gets stuck behind the bar.
190 stays on the bar for WICHUMA Weeraphon THA, takes it for a hard clean and sticks the jerk. Looks very happy with himself, as he should.
191 on for MIYAMOTO Masanori KOR. A challenging clean and a quick but incompletely extended jerk. 2 whites but jury overturned.
191 again for Alexey CHURKIN KAZ, who learns that the "clean" part of weightlifting is harder when you don't lift the weight.
BAK Joohyo comes out for 191 after a bit of rest, does a good but hard clean. He sticks the jerk this time and celebrates before the home crowd.
MIYAMOTO takes 191 for his third and does a haaard paused (grinded) clean. Takes a few moments to set himself for the jerk and sends it, good lift.
191 again for Alexey CHURKIN KAZ, who learns that the "jerk" part of weightlifting is harder when you don't lift the weight.
192 for the final attempt of the session, WICHUMA Weeraphon just flexes on everybody (and is very patient in the jerk recovery, well done).

Now we await the final results of the session in 8 years.

edit: Total
1st is MIYAMOTO Masanori JPN 344
2nd is WICHUMA Weeraphon THA 342
3rd is CHURKIN Alexey 340, equal to 4th BAK Joohyo 340.

[erpel]

Shi has transcended profane endeavors like "putting up a total" or "qualifying for the Olympics". Gone fishing, forever.

Let's see a 350 total here at least. THA perhaps?

[strapping]

Let's see a 350 total here at least. THA perhaps?

fugk i looked at the start book just now and there's no indonesia.
rahmat has put up 352 which is a guaranteed qualifier, but where is rizki at to do 353? edit: SEA games lol
cringe.

yuan chengfei not having done 347 to be a (very) temporary #2 rank? also cringe

[Elle]

Anyway, my misgivings about men on the internet aside, Pei does have a good base to be introduced to the national team. No huge weaknesses or technical errors for the national team to make worse. I'm interested to see what happens but I'm not expecting any huge improvements. Many athletes only have slight improvements after passing from youth through to junior and senior. I would love be proven wrong though.

National team coaches are not that good in your opinion?

[strapping]

National team coaches are not that good in your opinion?

(my opinion)

National team coach is a political, not technical appointment in ALL countries. Some of them are fantastic coaches, some of them genuinely know almost nothing (including the rules), most of them fall somewhere in between. Giorgi Asanidze is IMO an example of a fantastic coach who happens to be a national coach, even if I don't personally agree with his ideas on technique.


For China, I think a lot of their lifters (particularly the men, moreso than the women) have had their technique get worse, but improve their maximal strength on the national team. Actually, their older lifters had better technique than their current lifters.

Easiest example (of many) is LYU Xiaojun. In my opinion, Lyu Xiaojun's technical peak was in 2009. Best snatch technique and best squat jerk technique we've ever seen from him. No excessive loss of vertical force prior to the explosion in the pull, stayed connected to the bar and fixated strongly, and decelerating it into the bottom rather than sitting under it in both snatch and jerk.

Afterwards, he gained a lot of muscle mass and maximal strength but lost his timing. His squat jerk became a dip and sit under, rather than properly fixating it. He did become a better competitor mentally, but a worse technician especially post London.

They've also mentioned that CHEN Lijun doesn't have desirable technique - I'd agree that his bodily structure and physical condition adds unnecessary rotation in the lifts, but he has the best pulling technique in all of China. It was ugly, but it worked. He was able to keep up with the best snatchers and push for the win in clean and jerks, despite seemingly having much less maximal strength and equal "speed strength" qualities. Less strength, similar speed - the difference was fundamentally sound, weirdly expressed technique.

Many lifters were pushed too hard, or rehabilitated inappropriately. LI Dayin is in unknown shape and I can't be especially impressed with the "back rehab" he was doing. There may be some small skill difficulty in side plank variations but the man has snatched 170+; give him some real exercise prescription "Western experts". The only use of side plank variations for a double bodyweight snatcher is low-load exercise causing some analgesia/symptom modification, it's not S&C. Good exercise, wrong population.

More directly for the women - they tend to fare a lot better than the men in terms of maintaining technique or improving it, but it's still not 100%. LUO Shifang's jerk already looks softer and not as strong as it was prior to her joining the national team. We have no clue where ZHANG Wangli is (presumably retired). LI Yajun more or less peaked as a junior and many of the Chinese women are perpetually injured.

WANG Zhouyu has good technique but is perpetually limited by her hips, which she injured as a junior like 8+ years ago. This is the rare case of the opposite (in some sense) of what I'm arguing for, but it's only fair to present a balanced case.

There are also systemic things taught in the Chinese that I disagree with. Scientific material should be easily available to anyone whose job it is to look for it; if I have the time/energy I can dig some of it up myself.

Many of the lifters, initially mostly women but now including men, also have weeeeeaak hamstrings. This started in China but has now spread to other countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkmenistan, Italian women etc. Performing borderline pause snatches in competition; why? This is like driving a racecar, hitting the brakes to rev the engine harder and "go faster" when you let off the brakes. This is maybe (bad but) acceptable in cleans, however it's non-negotiably bad for the snatch.

The overhead position is also not well trained IMO, especially in jerks. For the jerks, this extends to the split as well. Many of the Chinese athletes (e.g. Tian Tao) have very little intentional development of what I'll call the "anterior overhead system" - abdominals, serratus anterior, anterior delts etc. It's all focused on the traps/rear delts/upper back, with the head sticking way forward. Developing both sides allows for more room for error.

Third point; poor use of the upper body in the three lifts. They all have shitloads of upper body muscle, I just don't think they use it well in the lifts. Compared to the past, current Chinese lifters are more likely to lose connection with the bar in the finish of the snatch/clean and the jerk and allow it to loop in front - Wei Yinting, Shi Zhiyong, Jiang Huihua are examples of this. However, this isn't universally true of all Chinese lifters. Gigachad, Luo Shifang and Pei Xinyi have a good connection to the bar, currently.

None of this is new information, weightlifting is a solved sport. LEE Bae Young, now coaching, had similar opinions on what is happening in South Korea. Huge focus on maximal strength but it doesn't translate to performing more successful attempts at heavier weights in competition.

[strapping]

Day 5 preview/placeholder
immediate thoughts upon looking at start list, transcribed into text please dont cancel me

71B: KADYROVA Gulnabat better not lie about not having full elbow extension. when i saw her first lift i thought damn shes unlucky. second time i saw a full elbow lock and thought "this motherfucker". third time she missed

71A: LIAO Guifang please do the total we know you're capable of.

81A:
ALMUTAIRI SOOD 09.03.2003 KUW
Entry 55
????
I totalled 55 my first day in the sport

edit: a bonus 2nd thought, brought from a friend. The IWF competition software won't allow you to put in a total of 0. The minimum possible total is 55 in the software (and 52kg according to the rules).

[strapping]

Shi has transcended profane endeavors like "putting up a total" or "qualifying for the Olympics". Gone fishing, forever.

Bro dropped a fishing montage