Topic: News: 2008 Olympics News

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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German strongman's dedication

One kilogram - that was all it took to crown the world's strongest man.

German weightlifter Matthias Steiner pulled ahead of Russian rival Evgeny Chigishev to win the Olympic men's +105 kg weightlifting gold medal on Tuesday.

Steiner lifted a total of 461kg, 203kg in the snatch and 258kg in the clean and jerk, to beat Chigishev by a single kilogram. The German won the battle of giants in his last lift, winning his country's first gold medal in the event at this year's Games.

[attachimg=1]
Matthias Steiner of Germany holds the gold medal he dedicated to his late wife Susann, who died
in a car accident in 2007, after winning the men's +105 kg of the weightlifting competition
August 19 2008. Photo by Xinhua.

Steiner's winning lift was also the last effort of the sport for this Olympics that saw China earning eight of the 15 golds at stake.

Chigishev was the strongest in the snatch session Tuesday. He kissed his fists after a 210-kg lift that gave him a 7-kg advantage over fourth-placed Steiner going into the second event -- the clean and jerk. He let out a victorious roar after clearing 250 kg in his last lift, but the glory was short-lived as Steiner stunned everyone with his final, winning clean and jerk effort.

In the snatch, the bar is raised above the head in one continuous motion. The clean and jerk is a two-part lift in which the bar is first pulled up to shoulder level, and then thrust overhead.

Steiner had finished seventh in the 2004 Olympics in the 105kg weight category, and took the gold in the 2008 European Championship +105kg snatch competition, bronze in the clean and jerk and silver overall, with a total weight of 446kg.

World champion Viktors Scerbatihs of Latvia settled for bronze.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Tiny Latvia had huge hopes for their giant weightlifter, Scerbatihs
By Mark Spector

In every little corner of the Olympics, you can find something that means everything to somebody. It is what keeps the flame burning, that every country here has something to wait for, something to hang on.

Sit with an Indian while he is watching his country's best woman play badminton, and you might think you're sitting with a Canadian watching his hockey team in Vancouver, a year and a half from now. Go to the Heineken House -- the Olympic version of the Spirit of Edmonton suite at Grey Cup -- and you will see the Dutch celebrate a cycling medal the way a Brazilian celebrates soccer.

Last night in Beijing, it was Latvia's turn. The weightlifting venue was their one big chance here, the chance for a tiny Baltic country that has won but one Olympic gold medal since slamming the door behind the Russians once and for all in 1991.

Canadians can relate to this: Latvia had not won a single medal in Beijing when the Latvian Shrek, Viktors Scerbatihs, lined up with the rest of the super heavyweights at a Beijing venue graced with one of those Communist-era handles that typifies so many of the venues here: the Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics Gymnasium.

It felt like a hockey crowd outside the building, as the Latvians waved flags and downed beers in what amounted to an eastern European tailgate party. Inside, it was not the usual swarthy gathering of the weightlifting set that we have become used to in this sport.

The Bulgarians, noted for their lifters, were expelled long before the competition began when all 11 team members tested positive for doping. Eleven Greeks were kicked out, too.

The most conspicuous among those who were not here however, on a final night of weightlifting reserved for the big boys, was The Iranian Hercules, Hossein Rezazadeh.

Four years ago in Athens, where Scerbatihs won silver (or "mortals' gold") behind the Iranian, the massive Rezazadeh played this competition like Wayne Newton does Vegas.

He would lift a bar weighing 550 pounds over his head, and hold it there long after the judges had approved the lift, striking a pose and smiling for the last of the picture takers.

A car accident ruined Herc's knee though, and opened the door wide enough for a bunch of Latvians to dance through and cheer for their favorite member of parliament.

Scerbatihs is a meat-eating, bar-bending member of Latvia's ruling Peasant's Party. He also lives at home with his mother, said Tatjana Koke, Latvia's minister of sport.

"His mother actually takes care of him," she said. "He trusts the food his mother prepares for him most of all."

Meet Latvia's Arnold Schwarzenegger. The giant who may one day rule his land.

"A year and a half ago, he entered my cabinet and his muscles and hands were so huge. But his eyes were like a kid's with a very clean personality," Koke said. "The basic philosophy of his life is that nothing falls down from heaven. You should work hard to achieve something."

"He is always positive, always smiling. Everybody loves him. You never see him angry, or wishing not to talk," sportswriter Ingmars Jurisons said before the competition. "He is the biggest [athlete] for us here, and it would be a disappointment, I think, for him to get silver or bronze. Honestly, he wants only gold."

And so they settled in for what was to be the perfect Olympic moment, in the perfect Olympic mismatch.

Fifty or so of the most raucous, outgoing fans, from a country that likes a good party as much or more than any other. Here in China, where the only party that seems to matter is the one Mao used to run.

Big Viktors was the eldest competitor, and though they all wanted to win, not all had bronze and silver Olympic medals hanging back home at Mom's place. This was likely his last go at Olympic gold -- "You have to either focus on parliament, or lifting" -- and, given what this meant to his people, there was only one medal at stake for Scerbatihs.

As it always does, the super-heavies came down to the final couple of lifts. Scerbatihs sat in third position, and could have tried to secure silver. But he ordered a couple of extra kilos put on the bar, and went for gold.

In a silent auditorium, he cleaned the bar to his massive chest with little problem, and as a nation held its breath back home, he made his move.

The bar went up, up ...

And then down -- as hard as 257 kilograms (567 pounds) can land, crushing the hopes of everyone who thought that maybe, just maybe, a story as good as this one could have a golden ending.

"I lost. If you ask me about my feelings, I lost," Scerbatihs said afterwards, a 33-year-old veteran of the sport who has no time or inclination to sugarcoat what is the black and white of sport. "You see, weak athletes, they do not lose. It is the strong athletes that lose."

What I think he meant was, a strong athlete is man enough to say, "I lost." Not, "I gave it my all; I had a personal best; this was a great experience; I got a bad call."

As a man, he is like his sport. You either lift the weight, or you don't. You either win, or you lose. Simple, really.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Steiner's inspiration for gold joins him
By Gary Kingston

They are the cartoonish-like behemoths of the barbell. Big-gut superheavyweights who can lift the weight of a small cow.

Just don't ask them to open your water bottle.

In the Olympic world of faster, higher, stronger, these 300-pound-plus weightlifters were most definitely the latter as they chased bragging rights Tuesday night as the world's strongest man.

But as bronze medallist Viktors Scerbatihs of Latvia struggled with the cap of a bottle on the dias at the medal winners news conference -- blame it on sweaty, meaty hands and slippery condensation on the water bottle -- it only served to demonstrate this point:

Underneath that beefy physique and almost inhuman ability to hoist iron, lies a real human being. Or, in Scerbatihs' case, a politician. They are different, aren't they?

But first, the human.

Matthias Steiner, the Austrian-born German, captured gold with a stunning 258-kg clean and jerk on his final attempt, just a year after he lost his wife, Susann, in a car accident.

The boyish-faced 24-year-old, whose snatch and clean and jerk total of 461 kg was one kilo better than that of Evgeny Chigishev of Russia, brought a five-by-seven photo of his wife onto the medals podium after fishing it out of his equipment bag.

Moments earlier, an elated Steiner had celebrated his winning lift by flopping his body over the barbell and pounding his hands on the floor. He then jumped in the arms of his coach, bounced around the lifting platform with a look of incredible joy and finally bent over to kiss the weights.

"I cannot tell you so much information, because you cannot describe the emotion," said Steiner when asked how he felt at that moment.

"Of course this gold is for my wife, my friends, my coach. But first for her. During the competition, I did not think so much about her because I had to stay in the competition. But afterwards, of course, I missed her a lot."

Steiner, who trained as a plumber, was seventh in Athens in 2004 in the 105-kg class while competing for Austria. But he had a falling out with the Austrians and moved to Germany in 2005, married Susann and began adding weight to compete as a superheavyweight.

The now 309-pounder failed in his first attempt in the clean and jerk Tuesday at 246 kilos, wobbling with the barbell overhead and taking one step off the platform before dropping the weight behind his head. He was successful at 248 on his second attempt, then, after Chigishev lifted 250 on his final attempt for a 460 total, Steiner had to go to 258 on his final attempt to secure gold.

"I thought to myself there is nothing to lose, you can only win from here."

The superheavyweight class was thrown wide open a month before the Games when two-time reigning Olympic champion Hossein Rezazadeh, known as the Iranian Hercules, pulled out, saying doctors said he should avoid "heavy and stressful activity."

Obviously, that ruled out lifting 250 kilos over his head.

Scerbatihs, a 33-year-old veteran from Latvia who was second in Athens, looked like he might well win the gold but just failed to hold 257 kilos overhead on his final lift, settling for a first attempt 242-kilo clean and jerk and a 448-kilo total.

"Unfortunately, I wasn't lucky today."

The oval-faced, 313-pound Scerbatihs, a Greens and Farmers Union member of the Latvian parliament since October 2006, said being a politician and a weightlifter was becoming incompatible.

"You can't combine these two ways of living. You either have to focus on lifting or on parliament."

He wasn't about to completely rule out continuing in the sport, however.

"I don't even have a girlfriend yet, while Chigishev has already a wife and a child. I will have to think about competing in London [in 2012] or a family."

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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PM Erdoğan takes blame for Olympic failure

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan admitted his share of blame Monday for Turkey's performance in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games falling short of expectations.

He said he considered himself responsible for the results and lamented the small number of medals Turkey has earned so far.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Kartal Hasan Doğan Sport Complex on Monday, Erdoğan made reference to American swimmer Michael Phelps, who has picked up eight gold medals at the Games, and said his government is reviewing the American education system, where sports play a prominent role in the curriculum. He stated that his government will expand sports programs in schools, also noting that Turkey needs to revamp its education policy and develop athletes who will compete in the Olympics.

The Turkish educational system does provide an early introduction to sports, and the popularity of team sports in Turkey does not allow individual athletes to get the support they need from the public and from sponsors. Since Turkey only concentrates on certain events in the Olympics, it assumes from the beginning that there are many in which it will not score well. Experts say that this defeatist attitude regarding certain events dampens the Olympic team's enthusiasm and motivation.

In the meantime, Turkish wrestler Ramazan Şahin won gold in the men's 66-kilogram category in freestyle wrestling on Wednesday. Şahin took the gold medal after defeating his Cuban, Iranian, Georgian and Ukrainian rivals.

Turkey fell short of the success it saw in Athens, where it won 10 medals in the 2004 Games. Turkish Youth and Sports Director Mehmet Atalay had said after the first group of Turkish athletes landed in Beijing that he and his officials were optimistic the Turks would win five gold, five silver and five bronze medals -- an overall medal increase of 50 percent compared to the previous Olympics

As of yesterday Turkey had only won four medals -- one gold in wrestling, one silver in weightlifting, one silver in athletics and one bronze in wrestling.

Turkey went to Beijing with 68 athletes, its largest contingent ever. But it was all about quantity. The going went bad from the very beginning: Nurcan Taylan -- the gold medalist in Athens in the women's 48-kilogram weightlifting competition and this year's junior world champion -- was eliminated last Saturday after three failed attempts in the snatch.

The following day world bronze medalist Adem Kılıççı was outclassed and outpunched by British teenager Billy Joe Saunders in the welterweight boxing bout.

Taner Sağır, the gold medalist in the men's 77-kilogram weightlifting event in Athens, was another medal hope. But on Wednesday Taner, like Nurcan, dropped out after failing in his three snatch attempts at 165 kilograms (363.8 pounds). He wound up winning nothing at all.

Star swimmer Derya Büyükuncu breaks record after record in Turkey, but in Beijing he has sunk into oblivion. E?ref Apak, the bronze medalist in the men's hammer throw in Athens, also took his place in the long list of failures after he failed to qualify for the finals.

Another medal hope, Sedat Artuç, also faltered when he failed to advance in the men's 56-kilogram weightlifting event.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Chinese weightlifters are strong ... and smart!
By Zhao Rui

Chinese fans have grown accustomed to seeing their weightlifters smash world records and win gold medals.

But at these Olympic Games, they have seen something they might never have dreamed of: victorious Chinese weightlifters being interviewed in English.

Gone are the days when Chinese lifters reached the pinnacle of their sport and then slid into a miserable retirement.

Every member of the national team now has some post-secondary education, and several have graduate degrees.

"We want to be successful as professional athletes and we also want to live a good life after retirement. Both things are important for us," said Zhang Xiangxiang, who won a gold medal in the men's 62kg class on Tuesday.

"I know there have been critics saying that Chinese weightlifters are uneducated and unable to adjust to normal life after retirement, but that is a thing of the past," Zhang said

"Now we are well-educated, and more international. We know what we are going to do after leaving the sport. We're definitely well prepared for life after weightlifting ."

It wasn't always so. As recently as ten years ago, weightlifters typically had no prospects after retirement.

Zou Chunlan, a former women's national champion, left the sport ten years ago with little education and was forced to raise livestock, transport sand, and work in a public bathhouse to support herself.

Her unhappy life was widely reported by local media last year and she received enough money in donations to open a laundry in Beijing.

The lesson was not lost on other Chinese athletes, however, particularly the weightlifters, who go through years of punishing workouts and often retire with crippling injuries.

Now, more than half the athletes on the national team have bachelor's degrees, and the rest are taking university courses, according to Chinese weightlifting chief Ma Wenguang.

Two lifters even have master's degrees - Zhang is a graduate student at the Beijing University of Physical Education, majoring in English literature, while women's 58kg champion Chen Yanqing has a degree in psychology from Jiangsu University.

"Having a good education is very important for our athletes," said Cui Dalin, China's deputy chef de mission. "It makes them more balanced people and helps them lead a better life after quitting the sport."

In 2003, China set up a nationwide program to provide scholarships, college stipends and insurance for athletes, Cui said.

Higher education is fast becoming the norm for China's elite athletes. World champion table tennis player Deng Yaping is a graduate of Tsinghua University and holds a doctorate in economics from Cambridge University in England.

Hurdler Liu Xiang is working on a doctorate in sports management at East China Normal University. Women's volleyball spiker Zhao Ruirui, tennis star Li Na, and diver Guo Jingjing are among the high-profile athletes taking postgraduate courses in their spare time.

"We want to do more than find them a job. We want to give them the skills to advance on their own after they retire," said Ma.

"This is a huge step for athletes. Once they overcome this first hurdle, they can do anything after they retire," he added.

Chinese sports icon Lang Ping, who now coaches the US women's volleyball team, agrees.

"Education is extremely important for athletes, especially for those who want to become international stars," Lang said.

"What impressed me most when I took the helm of Team USA is that their athletes are really well-educated. All of them have finished university studies and some of them even have higher degrees.

"There is good communication between me and my players. They always understand what I think and show me they are willing to learn something as long as it's good for them. This is the biggest difference between coaching in the US and in China and I think it's because of players' educational level."

Lang said she is happy to see Chinese athletes getting more educational opportunities.

"Chinese athletes are more international and more open right now," she said. "I'm thrilled to see them spending more time studying.

"You cannot be an athlete your entire life. Some US volleyball players become doctors or engineers after retiring. That's a wonderful thing not only for the athletes, but for the country's sports programs. I think the changing system in China is very good for the athletes."

For 58kg champion Chen Yanqing, education has not only improved her future, it has made her a better weightlifter.

"Learning psychology totally changed my career," said Chen, 29, who broke a world record to become the first woman to win two Olympic gold medals.

"It taught me how to react under pressure and helped me find what I am looking for in life. That's really important to me.

"Also, going to college is very important for athletes like me whose world is otherwise limited to the barbells."

Chen had retired after winning a gold medal in Athens four years ago. She enrolled in a master's program at Jiangsu University, but returned two years ago to set five world records at the 2006 Asian Games in Qatar.

"I love being in a classroom," Chen said. "I don't want to be a woman in her 30's who has never had a taste of being a student.

"I joined the weightlifting team when I was 15. After that, I didn't read a book. Now, I want to learn as much as I can. It has helped me find my motivation again."

Taking care of retired athletes has been a hot topic in China over the past few years. At the fifth session of the 10th CPPCC last year, former speed skater Ye Qiaobo urged the government to increase support for her fellow athletes.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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No medals for Iran weightlifting 

Iran has failed to take any Olympic weightlifting medals after Rashid Sharifi stood in the sixth place in the men's +105kg category.

Sharifi, who competed in group B, lifted 426kg in total to stand in sixth place.

Sharifi replaced Hossein Rezazadeh, who did not take part in the Beijing Games due to medical reasons.

Matthias Steiner of Germany lifted 203kg in the snatch and 258kg in the clean and jerk for a total effort of 461kg, 11.5kg short of Rezazadeh's world record of 472.5kg set in the Sydney Olympics.

Russian Evgeny Chigishev won the silver with a total of 460kg while Viktors Scerbatihs of Latvia took the bronze with 448kg.

Asghar Ebrahimi and Mohsen Beiranvand were the other Iranian wrestlers who failed to secure medals in the 94kg and 105kg categories.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Oceania weightlifting coach angry over medalless Games

Oceania Weightlifting Institute coach Paul Coffa says it's time to get rid of dead wood.

Radio Australia's Tanya O'Shea reports from Beijing, two years ago, Coffa said the Pacific had three medal chances in Beijing, but the islands are leaving without a glimmer.

The closest was Samoa's Ele Opeloge who tragically dropped her final clean and jerk, and miss out on bronze medal.

Coffa says she should have been lifting more, but severing ties with the Oceania Weightlifting Institute she bulked up, but didn't become stronger.

Coffa, the legendary coach of Commonwealth Games and Olympic medallists, says enough is enough, and he's now raising the bar.

He says no more holidays to see the family, no more extended stays in exotic locations after competition.

"We could have the best in the world but nothing has changed, and I am not satisfied with that," he said.

"You don't see the Germans or Eastern Europeans saying, oh tenth is good enough, they go back to training and come back and win, it's mental attitude and they have to understand that."

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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After victory, China plots next move
Will the state-sponsored system remain in place?
By Alan Paul

For years, observers have predicted that the Chinese state-run sports system would be reformed after the Beijing Games. After all, it is one of the last real bastions of socialist, top-down control in China, where most businesses have been reformed and privatized.

The question now is how much and how fast change will take place on the heels of China's most successful Olympic performance, as they topped the gold medal count for the first time (Medal standings).

"People within the Sports Ministry think the status quo is great and they will point to the gold medals as proof they are right," says Terry Rhoads of Zou Marketing, a Shanghai-based sports consultancy. Rhoads has been working in the Chinese sports world since 1994, when he opened Nike's offices here and he is an avid advocate of reform.

"The medals are the upside and the downside is the cost to the 400-million children, 20 and under, who don't get much of a chance to play scholastic or extracurricular sports because the system is geared only towards raising elite athletes who can win medals," says Rhoads.

"As China modernizes, why wouldn't you want its sports system to catch up with Western countries the same way so many other aspects of Chinese life have," he asks. "There's tremendous pride and passion about the medals but changing the system is not a bad thing."

The advantages of the state run system are numerous in terms of pure athletic development. At a news conference with the eight gold medal winning weightlifters, an obviously proud Ma Wenguang, president of the Chinese Weightlifting Association, gave a simple answer when asked the secret to China's success in the sport: "recruiting."

"We have weightlifting on the county and provincial level as well as national," he said. "We are always looking for promising athletes and the central government not only pay attention to the professional athletes...but also to the competitors at a grassroots level."

There are human costs to these systems, however, which is one reason many call for reform. Athletes leave their families to live at the schools as young as six years old. There are legions of sad stories regarding the harsh life of the many athletes who never quite become elite athletes but have not really been prepared for anything else.

China has a vast interior filled with farmers and manual laborers living a hand-to-mouth existence. The lure of free education and room and board as well as potential glory and lifetime comfort is hard to resist. But China also has a rapidly growing middle and upper class population that is not anxious to send their only children away from home.

Running these state programs is also very expensive. The government may have a hard time justifying the costs without the prospect of another Games stirring passions, and with so many other pressing needs, from health care to raising the living standards of the rural poor to rebuilding from the Sichuan earthquake. These realities will clash with China's fascination and affection for the Games and its performance.

"As a general theory many people agree that the system needs to be reformed but from which angle, to what degree and in how long a time span are all still being debated," says Tian Wei, host of China Central Television's Olympics programming. "I'm sure that the Olympics achievements of Team China will be an interesting reference point for all camps in the debate."