The crossroads helped Vietnam's capital to set three SEA Games records
At the Olympic Taekwondo Hall this morning, Quoc Toan soon overwhelmed his competitors when registering the highest weights for both competitions: 150 kg of jerk, 190 kg of push. In the first turn, the athlete born in 2002 caught up with the SEA Games record. In the second turn, this woman increased to 155 kg. Despite failing in the third turn with 157 kg, Quoc Toan still took the lead in the recoil, leaving his Indonesian opponent behind Muhammad Zul Ilmi by 10 kg, and certainly holding a record.
In the pushing part, Quoc Toan completed the first round smoothly with 185 kg to equal the SEA Games general election record of 340 kg. In the next turn, he continued to succeed with 190 kg to simultaneously set two new milestones of the Games: push and general election (345 kg). The failure of the Vietnamese election in the final push with a weight of 193 kg did not affect the final result.
Zul Ilmi is the champion in this weight class at SEA Games 31 with a total weight of 337 kg. But from the very beginning, the Indonesian capital was matched by Quoc Toan's impressive performance.
After the Vietnam election successfully turned two pushers with 190 kg, the pressure to compete to defend the gold medal made Zul Ilmi and the Indonesian coaching staff decide to change and raise the registered weight in the last push from 196 kg to 201 kg. If successful, Zul Ilmi will be first with a total of 346 kg, because Quoc Toan missed the last push and has a total weight of 345 kg.
But Zul Ilmi could not succeed. The 27-year-old athlete was only able to lift a little above the knee and then let go of both hands. In the end, Zul Ilmi finished second with a total weight of 328 kg, 17 kg less than Quoc Toan.
Before this competition, the SEA Games record in the 89kg category was 150 kg in the race, 187 kg in the election and 337 kg in the general election. And Quoc Toan has deeply broken the above milestones with the parameters of 155 kg - 190 kg - 345 kg, respectively.
In addition to his own efforts, the success of the Bac Lieu hometown election also came from a reasonable decision of the training board.
According to coach Luong Thi Bich Tuyen - who directly mentors Quoc Toan, when he heard that Indonesia would promote Rahmat Erwin Abdullah - a two-time world champion and bronze medalist at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in the 73kg class - to the 81kg class at the SEA Games. 32, the coaching board calculated and found it difficult for Quoc Toan to compete for the bronze medal with him. Therefore, since the first time he attended the Games at home last year - where Quoc Toan won a bronze medal in the 81kg class, he was persuaded to gain weight to move up to the 89kg class.
"Quoc Toan has been very determined to train for more than a year with the belief that he will win a gold medal. In practice, Quoc Toan also achieved better results than Bui Tuan Anh - silver medal at 89kg last year, so We also believe in Quoc Toan's ability," coach Bich Tuyen told MetaSports.
She also said that in the past year, Quoc Toan and a group of elite athletes preparing for the 32nd SEA Games only trained and competed in the country. The only foreign factor that the team has is the lesson plans of expert Daniela Samuilova Kerkelova - former coach of the Bulgarian weightlifting team who was invited by the General Department of Information and Communications to work at the IV National Sports Training Center in Can Tho.
Not being able to compete in foreign training, but Quoc Toan still made rapid progress in his achievements. The only regret of coach Bich Tuyen and expert Kerkelova is that the students did not succeed in the last rounds of each competition today, especially when in practice, Quoc Toan succeeded with 157 kg weightlifting and 193 weights. kg push push.
