By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
The Philippine national weightlifting team pulled off a convincing outing during the Asian Weightlifting Championships after snagging seven silver medals held at the Husnan Sports Park in Zheijang, China.
Fresh off a five-gold medal haul during the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Youth and Junior Championships in Peru, the PHL bets picked up where they left off and continued their positive streak on the international stage.
The trio of Alreen Ando, Rosegie Ramos, and Fernando Agad Jr. triumphed in their respective weight classes and joined hands to deliver the PHL’s silver medals.
In the women’s 64-kg category, Ando had one of her best campaigns in the Asian Championships after raking the three out of the seven silver medals of the PHL delegation.
Ando garnered a total lift of 232 kg, built from her 120 kg record in the snatch and 130 kg in the clean and jerk. She was eight kg short of surpassing Li Shuang, China’s bet who scored a golden lift of 239 kg.
Meanwhile, Ramos had her own version of a silver hat trick after collecting three more silver medals in the women’s 49-kg category.
Against the best of the best in her weight class, Ramos managed to score 90 kg in the snatch and 107 kg in the clean and jerk for a total of 197 kg.
Unlike Ando’s fate where Shuang had her numbers with a comfortable eight-kg gap, Ramos missed the gold medal by just four kg. Thailand’s Thanyaton Sukcharoen emerged as the category’s winner, who had 200 kg.
Lastly, Agad Jr., completed the PHL team’s seven-silver medal campaign when he stood out in the men’s 55-kg category.
The male representative lifted a total of 141 kg, which was enough to join Ando and Ramos as the PHL’s best-performing weightlifters in the Asian Championships.
