Pak wins women's 63kg weightlifting gold
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Pak Hyon Suk of North Korea won the women's 63kg weightlifting gold medal at the Beijing Olympics on Tuesday.
The 23-year-old Pak, the world number three, needed to convert the competition's very last lift of 135kg in the clean and jerk to overhaul Irina Nekrassova of Kazakhstan, who had finished with a 240kg total.
After failing to heave the same weight in two previous attempts, the North Korean finally converted at the third try, with the Olympic title on the line, to eclipse the Kazakh by just one kilogram.
Her total was also just 1kg off the Olympic record set in Sydney in 2000 by China's Chen Xiaomin.
Nekrassova settled for the silver while Lu Ying-Chi of Taiwan won the bronze.
Pak's path to gold was helped by the absence of Chinese world champion Liu Haixia and the early elimination of the Russian favourite Svetlana Tsarukaeva.
The Russian failed to progress past the snatch section of the contest, crying and banging her head on the wall as she left the stage.
- AFP
