Georgia's Talakhadze is the World's Best Weightlifter 2018

A renowned Georgian weightlifter competing in the +105 kg category, Lasha Talakhadze, has been named the World's Best Weightlifter 2018.

Voting for the World's Best was closed on the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) website with around 30,000 people having participated. Georgian sportsman Lasha Talakhadze, as expected, was named the best among men, receiving approximately 17,800 votes. Talakhadze was followed by Iran’s Sohrab Moradi, with Eko Yuli Irawan (INA) in third place.

In the women’s category, Lidia Valentin (ESP) was named first, have received nearly 13,000 votes.  Kuo Hsing-Chun from Chinese Taipei was second, followed by Tatiana Kashirina (RUS) who received the third largest number of votes.

In late January, the National Olympic Committee of Georgia named Talakhadze the Best Athlete of the Year 2018.

Talakhadze became the Number 1 in the world after he lifted 474 kg (a record 217 kg in a snatch and 257 kg in a push) in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on November 1, 2018. Aside from breaking the world record, Talakhadze won three gold medals.

On September 23, 2018, at the World Weightlifting Championships held in Tbilisi, Talakhadze broke two world records by snatching a 264 kg lift and in the clean and jerk – a total of 478 kg.

At the 2017 World Weightlifting Championships, Talakhadze broke his own snatch record by 220 kg and went on to set a new world record for the total with 477 kg, also breaking the all-time highest total of Leonid Taranenko from 1988.

The Georgian National Olympic Committee also awarded him the title of Georgia's Sportsperson of the Year in 2017.

By Thea Morrison          

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