Matthias Steiner of Germany won the gold medal in the Men's +105kg category with the last lift of the competition in a climactic finale of the Beijing Olympic Weightlifting tournament on Tuesday at the BUAA Gymnasium in Beijing.
Russian strongman Evgeny Chigishev led at the halfway mark with a 210kg Snatch ahead of Artem Udachyn of Ukraine with 207kg, reigning world champion Viktors Scerbatihs of Latvia with 206kg, and Steiner in fourth place with 203kg.
Udachyn was out of the race early in the Clean and Jerk, with just one success at 235kg and placed fourth.
Scerbatihs was in a good position, as the Clean and Jerk is his stronger lift. After an opening 242kg, however, he inexplicably failed to come out for his second attempt and was left with just one try for Gold.
Chigishev completed all his attempts. His final lift of 250kg gave him a total of 460kg and what seemed to be a tight grip on the gold medal.
Steiner struggled on his first attempt and missed 246kg. To give himself time to recover, he increased to 248kg, which he made on his second attempt.
Scerbatihs then called for 257kg on his final attempt in an effort to take the gold from Chigishev by 1kg. He came close but failed to hold the weight overhead and had to settle for the Bronze medal.
Steiner then took an increase of 10kg over his second attempt and against all odds succeeded with 258kg to seal the gold medal.
"I didn't do well in my first attempt of clean and jerk. But the Russian lifter did, so this was the motivation." said Steiner.
"Before the competition, I was a little bit nervous. But after missing my first attempt of clean and jerk, it helped me get into it [mentally]," he said. "It means a lot to me to achieve this dream,"
What touched the spectators more than his fabulous performance was the photo of his wife who had recently passed away that he held during the medal ceremony.
"Of course this Gold is for my wife, also my friends, my German coach and all of the people who have helped me. But first it's for her. During the competition I did not think so much about her, because I had to stay in the competition. But afterwards, of course, I missed her a lot."
(Beijing2008.cn August 20, 2008)