Both KIREEV Rinat 85kg and DEMANOV Andrey 94kg trained together. Although they are different heights and body weights they show identical finishes to phase four “The final acceleration”. This was the heaviest training snatch I ever saw them take. In competition Rinat did 170kg and Andrey 178kg. It was somewhat of a rarity to actually see them in the training hall,at past worlds the Russians have tended to fly in separately in groups a day or so before they lift and fly out. I had a chance to see these guys daily from about 5 days out. It was approximately the classic Russian taper as far as I saw. Their approach was fairly conservative compared to the “beat it to death” approach of TUR and EGY or the bizarre exercise selection of CHN in training. I say with tongue in cheek,  that if all lifters from these three teams didn’t train for the entire week they would fair better than they did in the competition.  I found the following Olympic qualification data interesting. (see below) . Russia is in #1 spot for women and #2 for men. However it is probably fairly meaningless in predicting where the medals will go in London. Its always interesting guessing which lifters will make the Russian team. On the mens side it will be categories 85kg to 105kg. If I had to guess; 2 in the 85kg, 2 in the 94kg and 2 in the 105kg. They have a number of choices in each category.

WOMEN

 
MEN

Two Russian weightlifters won the lifters of the year 2011 voting on the IWF site; Akkaev (male) and Tsarukaeva (female).