In the 96 kilograms weight category at which he won gold in Tokyo last year, Meso ditched his usual split jerk and opted instead for the power jerk.

"I only made the decision in the warm-up just before I went out to the platform," he said, having clearly enjoyed himself.

"It was the first time in competition and it worked, didn’t it? That was a personal record power jerk for me."

Meso declined three of his attempts and had no serious challengers, making 350kg with a single snatch of 155kg and two power jerks at 180kg and 195kg to finish a long way clear of Ismail Alswyleh from Saudi Arabia.

He had not been training since the International Weightlifting Federation World Championships in Colombia, where he won at 102kg on December 13.

"I had barely touched a bar before this competition, but it’s my home country so of course I had to compete," he said.

Entries for the Qatar Cup were less strong than in previous years because of its proximity to the World Championships.

Four others who competed in Colombia had totals worth more than 400 Sinclair points, while Meso, who weighed in at 95kg, had 395.

The best performance was by Amur Al-Khanjari from Oman, whose 161-200-361 at 89kg was 11kg better than his 13^th-placed effort in Bogotá.

Al-Khanjari finished ahead of Emil Moldodosov of Kyrgyzstan on 162-185-347, who had finished four places better than him in the World Championships.

Moldodosov’s team-mate Bekdoolot Rasulbekov went for the biggest single lift of the four-day competition, 220kg, but failed.

Rasulbekov, fourth behind Meso in Colombia, made 170-209-379 at 102kg, the second best effort on Sinclair points.

Doston Yokubov of Uzbekistan, ninth at 67kg in the World Championships, moved up to 73kg and made 137-175-312.

Saudi Arabia had four winners including the Al Saleem brothers Mansour and Seraj, and also won two of the women’s events.

The top female performer on Sinclair points was Khambad Surodchana of Thailand, who totalled 177kg at 49kg.

Her points score was not huge but arguably the best performance in the women’s events was by the host nation’s Rebeka Ibrahima, formerly Koha, making her comeback from retirement with 175kg at her old body weight of 59kg.

There was prize money for the medallists and the most deserving winner of the $1,000 (£830/€945) reward for a bronze medal would have been Abdulaziz Ahmed Nasser from war-torn Yemen, where weightlifters endure desperate training conditions.

The 102kg lifter and his team-mates acted as loaders on all four days, for which they received a welcome payment, but Nasser could not claim his prize money because the third-placed finisher in a lower weight category made a bigger total.

If there had been a medal for the most enthusiastic team it would have gone to Kuwait’s women, who cheered every lift by their team-mates and also sang their anthem louder than everybody else.

With the lifting all done, the venue will now be transformed for tomorrow’s Asian Weightlifting Federation elections.