Hye-Jeong Park (20, Goyang City Hall) emerged as the No. 1 candidate to win the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games women’s heavyweight division as soon as news broke that ‘the best active weightlifter’ Li Wen-wen (23, China) would not participate.
In fact, Park Hye-jung won the women’s 87 kg weightlifting competition held at the Xiaoshan Sports Center in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China on the 7th by lifting 125 kg in snatch, 169 kg in clean and jerk, and 294 kg in total.
However, Park Hye-jeong said, “I am not at all happy about Lee Wen-won’s absence. I have also been injured, so I know how difficult it is for Lee Wen-won right now. I hope he recovers quickly and shows his original self at next year’s Paris Olympics.”
Li Wen-Won is the strongest athlete holding world records for the women’s 87kg and above in the snatch (147kg), clean and jerk (186kg), and total (332kg).
She continued to reach the top in major competitions such as the 2019 Pattaya World Championships, the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, and the 2022 Bogotá World Championships, and she also continued her winning streak, winning every event she competed in since 2019.
However, at the 2023 World Weightlifting Championships held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on September 17 (Korean time), she failed repeatedly at 130 kg in the first and second snatch periods, and she withdrew without standing on the platform anymore.
At that time, Park Hye-jung lifted her total of 288 kg to win her first individual world championship.
Park Hye-jung, who competed again in international competition after 20 days, also won her first Asian Games gold medal.
Park Hye-jung repeatedly said, “I am so sorry that Li Wen-wen was injured.”
However, the confidence that comes from winning a gold medal in the Asian Games is great.
In fact, Hye-Jung Park said she suffered from back pain even before the 레고토토World Championships in September, and she even felt pain in her shoulder ahead of the Asian Games.
It has been 13 years since Jang Mi-ran (currently Vice Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism) won the gold medal in the women’s heaviest weight class (over 75 kg at the time) at the 2010 Guangzhou Games for a Korean athlete to win the weightlifting event at the Asian Games.
Even during the game that day, Park Hye-jung touched her waist and shoulders.
He smiled and said, “Luckily it didn’t cause any problems in practice.”
Park Hye-jung confessed, “It was a burden to challenge for the gold medal 13 years after Vice Minister Jang Mi-ran,” but added, “I wanted to show that Korean weightlifting is not behind other countries, so I trained harder and harder. I finished with a gold medal. “I’m happy,” he said.
After seeing footage of Jang Mi-ran competing, Park Hye-jeong said, “I want to do weightlifting” when she was in her first year of middle school. She came to Seonbu Middle School, which had a weightlifting club.
Park Hye-jung established herself as a leader in the ‘post-Jang Mi-ran’ by setting a new Korean middle school record (total of 259 kg) and a new junior record (290 kg). Last year, she was the World Junior Championship champion. It went up.
This year, Park Hye-jung has achieved the conditions of ‘post Jang Mi-ran’ by winning consecutive gold medals at the World Championships and Asian Games.
Park Hye-jung smiled and said, “I am fortunate to have made use of the atmosphere at the World Championships and won the Asian Games,” and added, “I set a Korean tie record in the clean and jerk, but the result in the snatch was disappointing. Next year, I will raise my snatch record and challenge the total of 300kg. “He said.
2024 is the year the Paris Olympics will be held.
Park Hye-jung has an exciting dream of becoming the first Korean female weightlifter to exceed 300 kg in total weight after her Olympic medal and Jang Mi-ran (her highest total weight in her career was 326 kg).