China muscles its way to more medals

Chinese lifters took both gold medals up for grabs and broke three world records at the Asian Weightlifting Championships on Monday.

In the men's 73kg category, Olympic champion Shi Zhiyong met no challenge in the snatch as he hoisted 168kg to rewrite the world record he set at last year's worlds.

After failing in his first two attempts, the 25-year-old hoisted 194kg on his third jerk for a winning total of 362kg - two kilos more than his previous mark.

Shi has dominated the 73kg division after the International Weightlifting Federation reshuffled all the categories last year, and he's owned the division's three world records since last year's worlds.

"I was confident of breaking world records before I came here because I became stronger after my winter training," said Shi, who won gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics. "Maybe I was too confident and got caught off guard in the jerk. What a thrill to do it after I failed twice!

"Jerk is my advantage, but I never expected that something might go wrong. It gave me a lesson to be more cautious in the future."

Shi's teammate Yuan Chengfei, silver medalist at the World Cup in Fuzhou, lifted a total of 349kg to claim the silver while the bronze went to O Kang-chol of DPR Korea at 338kg.

In the women's 55kg category, China's Liao Qiuyun, the 2017 national champion in 53kg, jerked 128kg to break the world record set up by Sukanya Srisurat of Thailand last year.

The 23-year-old Liao claimed the gold with a total of 224kg.

Xinhua in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province