Binay TUR 69kg

Binay TUR 69kg WR 166kg snatch attempt at 2011 World championships at Paris, France

Mirzoyan ARM 69kg

Mirzoyan ARM 69kg snatch sequence at world championship Goyang City, South Korea

China has entered, so I pick whoever they entered. In this case Lin, never heard of him…but I pick Lin for the win. The other places are a bit of a crap shoot. So, Mirzoyan ARM for 2nd and Razvan ROM 3rd. There are two lifters from PRK, the specter of going home medal less may be incentive enough for them. Although Binay TUR has at two worlds come within a hair of snatching a WR, he still cannot CJ  big weights. There are two ONE NAME lifters from INA Deni and Triyatno, they are dark horses. But maybe not Triyatno as he won a bronze in Beijing at 62kg. I may have to re-evaluate may 2nd and 3rd selections as we get nearer to the competition.

Maneza KAZ 63kg

Maneza KAZ 63kg clean sequence starting at knee level

One of the smallest classes with 7 entries. But none the less a tough competitive class. Maneza 1st followed by Tsarukaeva RUS 2nd. Again, will there be world records set by these two lifters? Simsek TUR is a solid 3rd. In the event one of these leaders bombs, that would very much open the door for Canada’s Christine Girard to win an Olympic medal. Christine was 4th in Beijing. No pressure Christine, bon chance.

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China has an entry, therefore I pick Zhang 1st, he was 1st at 2011 worlds and 2nd at 2010 worlds. Kim (PRK) is my pick for 2nd, in a reversal of fortune he was 1st in 2010 and 2nd 2011. So, it should be a battle between these two.  Irawan  (INA) is my pick for 3rd. In Beijing Irawan won bronze at 56kg and his teammate Triyatno a bronze at 62kg. Indonesia remains very competitive in these lighter categories. There are a bunch of lifters who could  easily slip in for a bronze medal(considering the ever present possibility of a bombout). It should be remembered that Rigert bombed at two Olympics and Alexeyev one, so the Olympics are the highest pressure competition. Possible candidates include; Bilgin (TUR), Figueroa (COL), Ji (KOR). I’m not sure where some of the entry totals were made, some were not at high level competition, most likely national competitions. If so, then IMO they don’t have a huge reliability.