2024 Olympics: Luis Javier Mosquera was left without a medal in the 73 kilo weightlifting category and left Paris with a diploma

TO Luis Javier Mosquera The medal was lost in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The athlete was one of the hopes of Colombia in the 73 kilo weight class, but was unable to secure a place on the podium.

Mosquera He finished in fifth place in the 73-kilo weightlifting event after lifting 340 kilograms: 155 in the snatch and 185 in the clean and jerk.

Good start

The competition for second place in the weightlifting snatch was very close. The Colombian had problems in his first start and failed in the first attempt with 150 kilos.

But Mosquera He did not falter and went for his second attempt with the same weight. This time, the Colombian corrected his technique and made the first mark in a very disputed day.

For his third attempt at snatch, Luis Javier Mosquera gained 5 kilos from his previous weight and with great effort lifted the 155 kilograms over his head, which placed him among the best.

The 29-year-old Colombian came in third in the snatch with 155 kilograms, the same as Indonesian Rizki Juniansyah, but far from the mark of the Olympic champion, Chinese Zhiyong Shi, who lifted 165 kilograms.

He suffered in the rush

The clean and jerk test did not start off very well for the Colombian athlete. The judges were very strict with his first lift of 185 kilograms and did not validate it, the green light went out.

Just like in the snatch, Luis Javier took a second wind and on his second attempt managed to lift the 185 kilos he had set for himself on his first attempt, a weight that kept him in second place.

For his third attempt, the Valle del Cauca native went for it all, putting on 189 kilograms of weight to secure a medal, but he fell flat in the second part of the exercise and stayed with the mark of 185 kilos that he added in his second attempt.

In the end, the Indonesian Rizki Juniansyah -who had tied with Mosquera in the snatch- won the gold medal. The Bulgarian Bozhidar Dimitrov Andreev completed the mission by being bronze.

The big surprise of the
day was the Olympic champion’s clean and jerk test Zhiyong Shi who was unable to lift the weights he set himself in his three attempts and did not complete the test.

HAROLD YEPES

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