She came running and pushed

Silver winner Marina Shainova was almost late for the decisive approach

The fourth silver medal for the Russian team at the Olympics was given to weightlifter Marina Shainova, who climbed to the second step of the podium following the results of the competition in the weight category up to 58 kg. True, there was, in principle, no talk of competing for gold. The advantage of the winner of this type of weightlifting program, Chinese Chen Yanqin, over our athlete was 17 kg - this is quite a lot. But Shainova was able to surpass the bronze medalist from the DPRK Yong Ae O by 1 kg.

The Chinese woman started as a favorite, because she also celebrated her triumph in Athens. Shainova, despite the abundance of titles, was considered a strong contender for one of the awards. Marina is a nine-time European champion, where she has dominated the last three seasons. True, one cannot help but take into account that, unlike the Olympics, at the World and Old World Championships, sets of awards are awarded not only for the result of the sum of two exercises, but also separately for competitions in the snatch and clean and jerk.

A native of Krasnodar, Shainova ordered a weight of 95 kg in the snatch for the first approach. Only Chen Yanqin (100 kg) and the girl from Ecuador Alejandra Escobar dared to do more. The Russian woman's starting approach was successful. But she lifted 98 kg only on the second try. Let us recall that in weightlifting, unlike, for example, high-altitude jumping disciplines in athletics, only three approaches are provided in each exercise. Therefore, it is very important to calculate your strength with a limited number of attempts. On the one hand, you won’t get the “steering wheel”, on the other hand, by the third time you will reach the maximum weight corresponding to the participant’s capabilities.

After the breakthrough in the intermediate protocol, Shainova was not even in the top three. The Chinese woman took 106 kg, the representative of Ecuador - 99 kg, girls from Albania and Thailand showed a similar result to the Russian woman, but their personal weight was less than that of our weightlifter. Marina beat three competitors due to her excellent performance in the clean and jerk (129 kg on the second attempt), but her rival from North Korea was hot on her heels. If she had immediately taken 131 kg, she could have improved her performance, ahead of the Russian woman. Luckily this didn't happen.

“I don’t remember much, to be honest. All approaches merged into one - equally difficult,” the sports information agency “All Sport” quotes the first impressions of the silver medalist of the Games. “I understood, naturally, that I had to take the weight, otherwise in a bad situation I might end up without a medal at all.” I entered my last attempt in the clean and jerk very late. I can't say it was anyone's mistake. Everyone was just overwhelmed with emotions. Well, yes, she practically rushed to the platform at a run. Maybe it was for the better. I didn’t think for a long time, I didn’t doubt it. She just walked up and pushed. And before the start, I also didn’t have much time to think. It turned out that we had not calculated the weight very well, and we had to lose an extra 600 g in the morning. I was also nervous.”

Vladimir ILYIN