China's 'Pocket Venuses' look to dominate weightlifting
Posted: Saturday December 05, 1998 01:27 PM
BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuters) -- Chinese weightlifter Chen
Yangqing snatches a 110-kg load, almost twice her own weight,
effortlessly up to her shoulders and then flings it above her
head with a loud grunt.
As the Chinese women's weightlifting team trains at a
Bangkok shopping mall the day before Sunday's opening of the
Asian Games, Japanese head coach Osamu Sekiguchi shakes his head
in awe and admiration.
"They're very strong. They will get maybe five or six gold
(out of seven)," he said as his own team of mostly young
university students practice nearby.
The Chinese team broke records at the World Weightlifting
Championships in Lahti, Finland in November, but the depth of
their lifters is such that an all-new team for the December 6-20
Asain Games is still expected to dominate the sport.
"Even with the new faces, they'll dominate," Sekiguchi
forecast.
Asian women have ruled the sport since it came into
prominence in the 1980s, and China's teams have led the way.
The Chinese "Pocket Venuses" as they were dubbed by the
press in the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima, swept all the gold
medals that year.
Sekiguchi said the main challenge to the Chinese was likely
to come from their arch rivals Taiwan.
He forecast two gold medals for the Taiwanese lifters -- Kuo
Pingchun in the 58-kg class and Chen Juilien in the 63-kg class.
The pair won a total of four golds in Finland.
Through their success, the Chinese women have remained free
of the doping charges that have followed their men counterparts.
Sekiguchi attributes their success to the team's rigorous
training.
"Every day they train hard, we can't do that in Japan," he
said. Most of his team is made up of university students who can
only train part time.
Japan won two silver and two bronze medals in Hiroshima, but
the 1994 lifters have all retired, he said.
Japan's best shot for a medal is Kaori Niyanagi in the 48-kg
class.
The tiny law student, who looks more like a gymnast than a
weightlifter, placed eighth overall in Finland and nabbed a
bronze medal in the clean and jerk with a 102.5-kg performance.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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