The host nation had its first win in the evening session when 19-year-old Gor Sahakyan was cheered on by a large crowd to finish clear in the men’s 67kg.

Ukrainian Konotop made all six lifts, four of them record-breakers, to finish 26kg clear of Nina Sterckx, the world and European 55kg junior champion from Belgium.

Konotop’s previous best total was 223kg when she finished sixth behind Alvarez at the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championships in Bogotá last December, the first qualifying event for Paris.

Here she made 106-129-235 for a 12kg improvement that was one kilogram more than Alvarez’s winning total in Bogotá.

"I prepared very well and I know the numbers make me top of the rankings - I’m very happy but I’m not surprised," said Konotop, 22.

"I started preparing for this as soon as I got back from the World Championships."

She is hoping her next competition will be the IWF Grand Prix in Cuba in June but there are complications because Ukraine will withdraw if "neutral" athletes from Russia take part there, which remains a possibility.

The contest was over by halfway in Yerevan.

In the snatch there were 18 red lights for attempts between 90kg and 98kg, and every one of the other 10 lifters had at least one failure.

Unfortunately for Lucrezia Magistris three of the red lights were hers, and so for the second time in two Olympic qualifiers the Italian failed to make a total.

As soon as Magistris had walked off the platform after failing at 98kg, Konotop came out and easily made her first attempt at 100kg.

She followed up with a European record snatch of 104kg, then bettered it on 106kg to build a lead of 13kg.

Sterckx did well enough in the clean and jerk to force Konotop out before everybody else had finished, but missed her final attempt at 120kg and ended on 93-116-209.

The 20-year-old Belgian lifted at 49kg in Colombia and now features in the rankings at both weights.

Konotop claimed all three senior continental records.

Her 29-year-old team-mate Nadiia Shpilka made only two good lifts but took third place on 93-114-207.

Sahakyan was also a wide-margin winner who made a big improvement on his previous best total.

He failed with a world junior record snatch attempt at 147kg but his 145-175-320 was 18kg up on his previous best total and far too good for the rest of the field.

Acoran Hernandez took second place on 140-165-305.

The 32-year-old Spaniard was sandwiched by two teenagers, Sahakyan and Kaan Kahriman from Turkey, who made 141-160-301.

Two others made the podium in clean and jerk - Ferdi Hardal of Turkey was second and Bulgaria’s Valentin Genchev third, both on 166kg.