Topic: News: Rezazadeh voted Champion of Champions

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Rezazadeh voted Champion of Champions

TEHRAN, Mar. 11 (MNA) -- Iran's +105kg weightlifter Hossein Rezazadeh, the two-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time world champion, was voted as Champion of Champions in 2005” here Friday night.

It is the fourth time I win the title, said the cherubic Iranian hercules adding, Now, I have a much more difficult task to do. The beefy icon thanked all those, who voted for him, expressing his congratulations to top nine athletes.

Taekwondo player Hadi Saii, swimmer Mohammad Alirezaii, mountaineers Laleh Keshavarz and Farkhondeh Sadeq, Greco-Roman wrestler Hamid Surian, freestyle wrestler Morad Mohammadi, footballer Mojtaba Jabbari, disabled athlete Farajzadeh, and shot putter Ehsan Haddadi followed Rezazadeh respectively.

Rezazadeh vowed to win the title in 2006 world event in the Dominican Republic and Asian Games in Doha, capital of Qatar.

I will do my best to improve the world records, he added.

The 27-year-old defended his world +105kg title at the 74th edition in Doha last November.

Rezazadeh, who invokes Hazrat Abolfazl (AS), a religious leader of the Shiites, prior to his every attempt took two golds in clean and jerk and combined and one silver in snatch categories of the Centennial World Weightlifting Championships in the Sheikh Jassim Stadium's hall.

He locked 210kg above his head in the third snatch attempt and won the silver, but Russia's Yevgeny Chigishev managed to lift 211kg and grabbed the coveted gold.

The Iranian, however, proved unrivaled as he flung 251kg in his first clean-and-jerk lift, enough to fetch the glittering gold.

Chigishev, who lifted 246kg, found 251kg too heavy, leaving the bar just inches above the floor.

The Bulgarian-born Qatari lifter Jaber Salem Saeed bagged three bronze medals in snatch, clean and jerk, and combined classes, with a total record of 446kg -- 201 and 245.