Rahmat Erwin Abdullah, Indonesia's Piles Make History At The Olympics Through Weightlifting

Indonesia's flagship lifter, Rahmat Erwin Abdullah. (Photo via Antara)

JAKARTA Indonesian weightlifter Rahmat Erwin Abdullah has a great chance of getting a gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics after his successful achievements at the 2023 Asian Games Hangzhou, China.

Rahmat, 22 years old, who fell in the 73 kilogram class contributed one gold medal for Indonesia at this year's Asian Games. The victory of the athlete from Makassar allows Indonesia to have high hopes for next year's Olympics.

This achievement in China also complements the achievement of three SEA Games gold medals and one bronze medal from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. This means that now there is only an Olympic gold medal that he has not yet bag.

At a very young age, Rahmat automatically made the opportunity to realize his dream at the most grand event in the world open. Next year's Olympics are his best chance to make the achievements that all athletes dream of.

Indonesia's great hope rests with Rahmat after what he made in Hangzhou. In addition to the gold medal brought home, he also broke the 201 kg world record in the clean and jerk class to complete the total lift of 359 kg.

The clean and jerk force made Rahmat sharpen the world record in his own name weighing 200 kg which was engraved at the World Weightlifting Championships in Bogota in 2022.

Not only world records, Rahmat also broke Asian records for a total lift of 359kg. Before being clean and jerk, Rahmat first made a snatch of 158 kg.

Holding a world record makes Rahmat also expected to shine in Paris next year. Moreover, the achievements he got today are in line with the gold period of Indonesia's previous mainstay weightlifter, Eko Yuli Irawan.

Eko is the winner of two Olympic silver and bronze medals. However, when he was Asian Games Hangzhou he failed to complete a 175 kilogram clean and jerk in the third trial of 67 kg class.

This failure marked the end of Eko's medal tradition at the Asian Games which began in the Guangzhou, China 2010 edition. Luckily, this failure did not break the tradition of Indonesia's weightlifting medal at the Asian Games in the last 41 years thanks to Rahmat's presence.

Now Indonesia's hopes of achieving an even bigger event are maintained even though Eko's brilliant career is slowly starting to shrink. Rahmat began to shine at the right times when Indonesia was looking for Eko's regeneration in weightlifting.