Turkmen weightlifter Shahzadbek Matyakubov won three gold medals in each event and the combined total with a junior world record in the clean and jerk at the World Junior Championships under 20 that ended in Leon, Spain. 

The third-year student of the Turkmen State Institute of Physical Education and Sports achieved this success in the 102 kg weight category, in which 13 athletes from 11 countries competed for the title of the strongest. 

Shahzadbek completed five of his six qualifying attempts. In the first two approaches to the snatch, he lifted 170 and 175 kg. In the third, the 180 kg barbell did not yield.

 Despite this, after the first event, our athlete confidently took first place, 6 kg ahead of Mahmoud Hassan from Egypt, who was following him, and 7 kg ahead of Mateus Pessanha from Brazil. 

In the second exercise, as in the first, the Brazilian weightlifter successfully used all three attempts, setting a junior world record in the clean and jerk – 215 kg. However, this record lasted no more than two minutes, and was broken by a 20-year-old master of sports from Turkmenistan.

Shahzadbek reached the record weight of 216 kg after two successful attempts at 205 and 210 kg already as a world champion in the biathlon. All that was left was to take one more gold in the clean and jerk and add his name to the list of world record holders. And our weightlifter managed to do this, having been awarded the prize «Best male lifter» at the current junior world championship. The world junior records in the snatch (183 kg) and total (393 kg) are currently held by 21-year-old 2023 European Champion Garik Karapetyan from Armenia.

«Today I wanted to set a record in the snatch, but I didn't take any risks», said Sh. Matyakubov, who finished the competition with a total of 391 kg, which is 5 kg higher than his previous best result, shown in April of this year at the Olympic Qualifying World Cup in Phuket (Thailand), where he took 8th place.

In the final protocol, Shahzadbek Matyakubov was 8 kg ahead of the second-placed Brazilian Mateus Pessanha (383 kg: snatch - 168 kg, clean and jerk - 215 kg) and 22 kg ahead of the third-placed Egyptian Mahmoud Hassan (369 kg: snatch - 169 kg, clean and jerk - 200 kg), who became the world champion among young men in 2022, won bronze in the clean and jerk at the adult world championship in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) last year, and won a silver medal at the African championship this year. Shahzadbek began weightlifting in the Akdepe etrap of the Dashoguz velayat with his brother Nabizhon Matyakubov. He is currently improving his skills with the head coach of the national team Mansur Rejepov.

Last year, Sh. Matyakubov competed in the 96 kg weight category, where he won the Junior Asian Championships in Delhi (India), the Grand Prix II tournament in Doha (Qatar) and took 2nd place at the Junior World Championships in Guadalajara (Mexico).

Before the end of this year, Shahzadbek will have another opportunity to break records among juniors at the World Championships among adult athletes from the 6th to 15th of December in Bahrain and the Junior Asian Championships from the 19th to 25th of December in Qatar, where he promised to fight for all three record achievements.

Medals of the Junior World Championships in ten men's and ten women's weight categories were contested by 350 weightlifters from 67 countries.

Turkmenistan was represented by two athletes - Shahzadbek Matyakubov and 18-year-old first-year student of the Turkmen State Institute of Physical Education and Sports Anamjan Rustamova, who won a bronze medal in the snatch (103 kg) in the weight category up to 81 kg, showed the fifth result in the clean and jerk (127 kg) and took fourth place in the total (230 kg). Our weightlifter was only 1 kg behind Yekte Jamali, a native of Iran from the refugee team, who finished third - 231 kg (104 + 127). Silver went to Mayrin Vanessa Hernandez (Mexico) - 232 kg (104 + 128). And Emma Poghosyan (Armenia) became the world champion - 233 kg (100 + 133). In the overall medal standings, Turkmen weightlifters with 3 gold and 1 bronze medal took 9th place among 32 teams with medals.