Iran, Egypt soar high in Fazza IPC Powerlifting
dubai — Iran’s Seyedhamed Solhipouravanji and Egyptian Hany Abdelhady fought our for gold, breaking world marks as the UAE’s Mohammed Khamis Khalaf won bronze on the final day at the Seventh Fazza IPC Powerlifting World Cup – Dubai 2016 in the men’s U88kg category at the Dubai Club for the Disabled.
In Friday’s exciting sessions, the home crowd cheered the gold medallist at the 2004 Athens Paralympics to raising the bar from 215kg to 222kg and then 227kg. Despite this, Khalaf’s impressive efforts fetched him only a bronze.
Solhipouravanji (228kg) led by one kilogramme from Adbelhady (227kg) heading into the third and final round, where the latter threw down the gauntlet by lifting 231kg to set a new world record.
Egypt thus seemed set to snare yet another gold medal at this prestigious meeting, yet Solhipouravanji had other ideas and he subsequently bench-pressed 232kg to take the top spot of the podium and incrementally better Abdelhady’s prior marker.
The Egyptian gamely continued into an almost academic and redundant fourth stage, where he sensationally posted the third world record in quick succession with 233kg. Solhipouravanji sportingly tried to respond with a crack at 233.5kgs, but — with insufficient time to prepare for another bold bid — he just couldn’t quite manage it and Solhipouravanji ultimately took gold and Abdelhady the world record.
“I feel I did well and — even though I’m yet to recapture my old form – it was still a good performance,” Khalaf said. “You saw the challenge I’m facing here as the Egyptian (Abdelhady) and the Iranian (Solhipouravanji) are the best. A bronze medal was a good outcome in the circumstances and I hope to put up even more of a challenge by lifting more than this particular weight (227kgs) in Rio de Janeiro.”
The Iran-Egypt one-two was reversed in the men’s U97kg event, where Mohamed Eldib set another new world record with a lift of 243kg to see him finish well clear of the Iranian runner-up Saman Razi (222kg), with Ukraine’s Anton Kriukov (221kg) back in third.
Egypt’s dominance on the medals table continued as well in the women’s U79kg and U86kg competitions, where Geehan Hassan (120kg) and Randa Mahmoud (140kg) picked up a silver and gold medal respectively.
Jordan’s Tharwh Tayseer Hamdan Alhajaj (119kg, silver) and Olga Kazankevich (119kg, bronze), of Russia, joined Mahmoud on the podium in the U86kg weight class, whereas Hassan had Ukrainian Lyubov Semenyuk (102kg, bronze) and Vera Muratova (126kgs, gold) as medal ceremony companions in the U79kg top three.