ASHGABAT 2017: A new snatch PB and five out of a possible six successful lifts has Jacob Marquardt grinning from ear to ear after his international debut at Ashgabat 2017.
Plus, Jocelyne Francken secured another top-10 weightlifting performance for Australia with 8th in the women’s 69kg category on Friday night.
22-year-old Marquardt finished third in the B Group with 135kg in the snatch and 160kg in the clean and jerk for a total of 295kg, which places him 13th overall in the men’s 94kg weight category.
The lifter from Campbelltown, NSW was stoked with his new personal best and intentional debut.
“A five-kilo PB in the snatch is really good!” Marquardt said. “And to get five out of six lifts at my first international competition is huge.
“I hit the 135kg [in the snatch] at a training camp at the AIS in August but it has been a little bit up and down since then with some health issues and a knee injury so it took a little while to build myself back up.
“However, the entire time I was warming up in the back room and when I was on the competition platform, the issues with my knee wasn’t even in my mind because I was so focused on getting each lift.”
After clearing 150 and 160kg in the clean and jerk he jumped 12kg in his third and final lift, which would have given him a new total PB of 307kg and pushed him into the International 2 Weightlifting ranking category.
“After a very quick discussion with [coach] Leo in the back room we decided to give it a crack and see how it goes,” he said.
“At the end of the day I can’t be disappointed that I didn’t quite get it. I got it locked out overhead but couldn’t stabilise it enough, which is fine.
“That’s what we’re here for. We’re not here to stuff around. It was a good jump and you need to practice those big jumps to be able to sometimes move up a few extra places, so to get that extra experience was really good,” he said.
Australian weightlifting coach Leo Isaac said Marquardt looked strong and calm before the competition and that confidence showed on the platform.
“He was performing extremely well in the warm-up,” Isaac said.
“He looked on song, he looked strong, he looked confident and those are the things that make you look comfortable.
“It’s often not about the weight on the bar, but it’s the sense of belief that you can do it which is the critical aspect of performance and his confidence showed,” he said.
In the A Group evening session, Iran’s Sohrab Moradi took gold with a new World Record total of 413kg, breaking the previous World Record by 1kg. Silver went to Uzbekistan’s Farkhodbek Sobirov with 397kg, followed by China’s Hao Liu with 387kg in bronze.
On Friday night, Jocelyn Francken lined up in the women’s 69kg A Group competition to place eighth overall with an 80kg snatch and 100kg clean and jerk, giving her a total of 180kg.
The 22-year-old competed in the Oceania and Commonwealth Championships the weekend before, so felt she had a good performance but it wasn’t as strong as she had hoped.
“I performed okay considering the turnaround from the previous competition. I would have liked to have done a bit better but I am happy with it,” Francken said.
“This was actually only my fifth or sixth competition since I started. I love lifting but I still find competition so nerve racking, but I am getting better at handling the nerves and this international experience will make me better in the long run.
“It’s really good to get this experience, and this competition is so much bigger than any other I’ve been to. It’s been really cool and I’ve had a lot of fun,” she said.
History was made in the women’s 69kg event when Apolonia Vaivai from Fiji set a new 105kg Oceania record in the snatch, adding an extra 5kg to Australia’s Michelle Kettner’s 100kg record set at the Sydney 2000 Games.
Vaivai attempted to go for the clean and jerk record too, but fell short by 8kg, leaving Kettner’s 122kg 17-year record to remain standing.
Kazakhstan’s Assem Sadykova claimed gold with a total of 222kg, only one kilogram heavier than Vaivai’s 221kg. Kristel Macrohon from the Philippines rounded out the podium with 209kg.
Three weightlifters will represent Australia on Sunday with Matthew Lydement and Ridge Barredo lifting in the 105kg category and Sofia Zudova lifting in the 90kg.
Full results and the Games schedule is available HERE.
Georgia Thompson
olympics.com.au
