By Brian Oliver at the Baluan Sholak Sports Palace in Almaty

Mengrong Deng took the overall title at the IWF World Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan today ©Getty ImagesChina's Mengrong Deng missed a gold medal in both the snatch and the clean-and-jerk in the women's 58 kilogram, but won the coveted overall title at the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championships here.

Deng became only the second female lifter, since the existing weight categories were introduced in 1998, to take the overall title without winning one of the other golds.

The recent Asian Games champion, Jong Hwa Ri of North Korea, was beaten into second place.

Two Thai lifters won three medals between them, a gold, a silver and a bronze.

Had they been able to combine their best efforts - a gold with 106kg in the snatch for teenager Sukanya Srisurat, and a clean-and-jerk silver on 131kg for Rattikan Gulnoi -  they would have won the overall title.

"We compete against each other a lot, and our totals are usually about the same," said Gulnoi.

"I think she's Thailand's best lifter and she thinks it's me.

"I hope we can both improve."

Srisurat, 19, was surprised to take the snatch gold.

Deng was successful with all her three lifts and made them look easy.

But 105kg was not enough, for Srisurat made her third attempt at 106kg.

China's Mengrong Deng missed a gold medal in both the snatch and the clean-and-jerk in the women's 58 kilogram, but won the overall title at the World Weightlifting Championships in Almaty ©IWFChina's Mengrong Deng missed a gold medal in both the snatch and the clean-and-jerk in the women's 58 kilogram, but won the overall title at the World Weightlifting Championships ©IWF

Ri looked in poor form, failing twice on 103kg, and another of the favourites also struggled.

Hsing-Chun Kuo, of Chinese Taipei, who won last year's clean-and-jerk and overall gold, made only two good lifts and was eight kilomgrams or more behind the medallists.

Ri improved in the clean-and-jerk, winning gold with 133kg, but she never looked likely to catch the impressive Deng, whose winning total was 235kg.

Deng was asked what she was looking forward to now that she had overcome her injury to take the title.  

"Food," she said.

"Especially dessert."

Her favourite interests outside weightlifting, she said, were "food and shopping".

There was a fifth medallist.

Because Ri failed with her two attempts at 103kg in the snatch, the 19-year-old Colombian Yenny Alvarez Caicedo was left in third place.

She had great encouragement from her teammates in the crowd and gave the best smile of the night when her bronze medal was confirmed.

The Colombians have a number of impressive young lifters, and also have the noisiest support from their team, and the most colourful outfits in their national colours of yellow, blue and red.

Weightlifting has been popular in Colombia for years, and they improved markedly during the 1990s under the Bulgarian coach Gancho Karouskov.

They had a huge boost when women's lifting was introduced to the Olympic programme in Sydney in 2000.

Maria Isabel Urrutia, who had competed as a discus thrower and shot putter at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, switched to weightlifting and won Colombia's first gold in any sport when she won the 75kg category. 

Urrutia went on to become a prominent politician.


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