Olympics: weightlifting 🏋️

The second Olympic event that we had tickets for was the men’s 61kg weightlifting competition. We chose this because we do CrossFit, which involves learning the two Olympic lifts, snatch and clean & jerk. I was fascinated to see what these men, weighing only a couple of kilograms more than me, could lift.

We got up early to travel to Paris because, although the weightlifting didn’t start until 3 o’clock, we’d bought tickets for the 210 metre high Montparnasse Tower to see views over Paris. We cycled to Esbly and caught the train to Gare de l’Est, where we used the Metro to get to Montparnasse.

After a coffee in the sunshine, we walked round to the tower and caught the lift. It quickly flew up to the 56th floor, causing our ears to pop. The views were stunning and we spent some time looking at the Paris landmarks through windows until we realised there were steps to a rooftop terrace.

Highlights included the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Sacre Coeur, as well as places where we’d been to soak up the Olympic atmosphere, including Place de La Concorde, Pont Alexander III and the Olympic balloon.

We then took the Metro to Arena Paris Sud 6 for the weightlifting. This event was inside and it was nice not to have to worry about baking in the hot sun. However, unlike other arenas we’ve been to, the seats were really uncomfortable!

We soon forgot about this when the lifting began. First snatches. The Chinese weightlifter Li Fabin was astonishing. He lifted 143kg, just 3kg less than his world record. Sadly, several competitors failed all 3 snatches and didn’t progress to do the next lift, clean & jerk.

The competition was fierce but Li Fabin cleaned and jerked 167kg, winning the gold medal with a competition total of 310kg and successfully defending his title. An American lifter tried to break the world record for the clean and jerk, but failed.

Afterwards, we both said we’d enjoyed the event even more than we’d expected to. We were surprised how tactical the competition was, with lifters changing their weights to give themselves a longer rest or to make others lift again straight after a failure. Combined with some lifters being better at snatch and others at clean and jerk, this meant the lead kept changing and it was unclear who would win medals until the very end. Exciting!