The 66kg class did not go to plan on squat with more failures than successful lifts and three of the ten lifters not making a successful lift. Reigning world champion, Sergei Gladkikh of ROC, missed his second, allowing Yusuke Satake of Japan to move into the lead and then missed his third which allowed France’s Hassan El Belghiti to grab the silver, leaving Gladkikh with work to do to retain his title.
Yusuke pressed a world record bench of 222kg in front of the record holder, Tsung-Ting Hsieh, which gave him a 20kg advantage over Gladkikh at sub-total with Poland’s Mariusz Grotkowski also on 505kg at sub-total.
Everything changed after the first round of deadlifts though. Gladkikh regained the lead with 270kg and El Belghiti pulled himself into contention with a massive 300kg opening deadlift, rocketing him from 5th to 2nd place. Satake clung to 3rd place but was under real pressure with Hsieh and Grotkowski less than 10kg behind.
With everything on the line, Satake pulled 255kg for his third and regained the podium. Grotkowski couldn’t improve when his grip let him down and Gladkikh cemented the gold with 290kg. Hsieh pulled 300kg to move into silver medal position and El Belghiti responded by attempting 310kg but there was clear downward movement of the bar and he had to settle for the deadlift gold and the overall bronze. What an exciting finish.
