On July 31, 2021, in the men’s 81 kg weightlifting competition in the Olympic Games, Chinese athlete Lu Xiaojun won the championship with 170 kg snatch and 204 kg clean and jerk, with a total score of 374 kg, three Olympic records!
Compared to the results of this competition, I am even more shocked by Lu Xiaojun’s age. This year, Lu Xiaojun is 37 years old.
What does 37 years old mean to weightlifters?
Let’s take a look at such a string of data first:
Zhan Xugang was born in 1974 and retired at the age of 30.
Zhang Guozheng was born in 1974 and retired at the age of 30.
Shi Zhiyong was born in 1980 and retired at the age of 30.
Liao Hui was born in 1987 and retired at the age of 29.
Long Qingquan was born in 1990 and retired at the age of 30.
……
Most of the previous men’s weightlifting Olympic champions in China have retired at about 30 years old.
At 37 years old, most weightlifters have retired for 7 years.
Weightlifting itself is a cruel and intense project where the old and the new alternate. Every time the age increases, the probability of winning the championship will drop a lot. In the previous 77kg level, almost none of the previous Olympic champions can continue to perform well in the next Olympics after winning the championship.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Lu Xiaojun still broke the world record in snatch at the age of 32 and won an Olympic silver medal, which in itself was shocking enough. (The penalty for the Rio Olympic Games is quite controversial, and the champion Rasimov is temporarily suspended due to urine test problems. After some time, this gold medal is likely to be lost and recovered)
In that year, I thought Lu Xiaojun would retire. After all, he was 32 years old. If he participates in the next Olympics, he will be 36 years old.
The 2020 epidemic has extended the competition for another year.
In 2021, Lu Xiaojun will be 37 years old.
What does 37 years old mean to a weightlifter?
37 years old, 7 years more than the average retirement age of Chinese male weightlifters in the past.
37 years old, 13 years longer than the average age of men’s Olympic weightlifting champions.
At the age of 37, most people have begun to get blessed…
Lv Xiaojun is still standing on the Olympic weightlifting platform.
Some researchers have made statistics on the 156 men’s weightlifting champions that emerged in the history of the modern Olympic Games from 1896 to 2016. The age of the men’s Olympic weightlifting champions is mainly in the 22-28 years old range. [1]
There are very few players who can win the championship after the age of 30.
There is only one player who can win the championship after 35 years old in the history of weightlifting for more than 100 years.
57 years ago, Rudolf Pryukfelder, a former Soviet weightlifter who won the 82.5kg class at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, won the Olympic champion at the age of 36 years and 40 days.
In the 57 years since then, no athlete has ever made it to the Olympic weightlifting podium after the age of 35.
Lv Xiaojun broke the dusty 57-year “curse” in 2021, and won the championship again in 2021, forcibly extending the life of his athletes for another 8 years.
37 years old.
Three Olympic Games, two gold medals and one silver medal.
Seven World Championships, five championships and one runner-up.
The old 77kg class broke the world record 7 times.
New 81kg class, broke the world record 5 times.
If this is not a myth, then what is a myth?
- Yang Tangxun. Research on the age characteristics and winning factors of men’s Olympic weightlifting champions[J],Sichuan Sports Science 2019, 38(1): 54-58
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