Taiwan weightlifter wins Olympics berth with world record performances

2021/04/21

Taiwan weightlifter Kuo Hsing-chun won three golds and set two new word records during the Asian Weightlifting Championships April 19 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to secure her place at the Tokyo Olympics this summer.
 
Competing in the women’s 59 kilogram category, Kuo grabbed gold for her snatch of 110 kg, breaking the previous record of 107 kg held by North Korea’s Choe Hyo-sim.
 
Kuo won two more golds in the clean and jerk with a lift of 137 kg, tying her own world record, and a combined total of 247 kg, which broke her previous world record of 246 kg. Kuo now owns all three world records in the women’s 59 kg category.
 
On her official Facebook account, President Tsai Ing-wen congratulated Kuo for her achievements. The athlete’s unprecedented success is testament to years of hard training and perseverance, Tsai said.
 
According to the Sports Administration under the Ministry of Education, it is the first international competition Kuo has competed in since her appearance in the International Weightlifting Federation World Cup held December 2019 in the Chinese city of Tianjin. She has been restricted to training in Taiwan for the past year due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
The latest competition guaranteed Kuo a spot at the upcoming summer Olympics, set to be her third appearance in the world’s most prestigious sporting event. A total of 32 Taiwan athletes have qualified for the Tokyo games so far. 


Source: Taiwan Today (https://taiwantoday.tw/index.php)