Asian Games 2023: Nurul Akmal Failed To Participate In Donating Medals For Indonesia

Indonesian women's lifter Nurul Akmal failed to win the 2023 Asian Games medal. (Photo via Antara)

JAKARTA - The weightlifting sport has not succeeded in adding to the 2023 Asian Games gold medal for Indonesia. Indonesian women's lifter Nurul Akmal, who took part in the 87kg class final, only finished fourth.

Fighting at the Xiaoshan Sports Center Gymnasium, Saturday, October 7, the athlete who is familiarly called Amel finished the competition with a total lift of 261kg.

He lost to South Korea duo Park Hyejeong and Son Younghee who won gold and silver medals.Park posted a total lift of 294kg; 125kg from snatch and 169kg from clean & jerk, while Son posted a total lift of 283kg.

Meanwhile, Duangaksorn Chaidee won bronze for Thailand with a total force of 275kg.

The Asian Games 87kg class competition map is not too foreign to Amel, it's just that world record holders and Asia Li Wenwen did not appear to defend the hosts.

"Indeed, I was seen on the startlist at number four, until the final was also number four," said Amel when met by Antara.

Departing from 105kg in the first batch of snatches, Amel firmly executed all targets given by the coach and got his best snatch of 115kg in the third batch.

However, the result has not been able to bring Amel up from the last position of six lifters competing as Park Hyejeong from Korea became the strongest with a snatch of 125kg to clean & jerk.

In his first effort in clean & jerk, Amel failed to execute a load of 145kg. The spectators, which were dominated by local residents, cheered "jia you" to encourage the women's lifter from Aceh to lift the load target perfectly in the second batch.

Amel added one kilogram barbell to the third batch he successfully executed and brought him to finish fourth behind Thailand.

"Maybe it was just a little bit of resistance, a bit of a hurry earlier," said Amel about his failed batch.

"The Atmosphere here is different, here it is very supportive, not only the host who is encouraged but all athletes from various countries are encouraged, it's fun," said the lifter who in Tokyo 2020 finished fifth.

The coach of the Indonesian weightlifting team Dirja Wihardja revealed that Amel was targeted to overtake Thailand lifter Chaidee.

However, earlier this month the Indonesian team had just finished its work at the world championship in Riyadh so that preparations for the Asian Games were less than optimal.

In the future, Amel will hunt for Olympic tickets at the Grand Prix in Qatar, December. Amel is still ranked 11th with a total lift of 261kg.

"Automatically it must reach 265kg or 266kg, so we save five more kilograms for the next championship in Qatar," said Dirja.

"In training he once reached that burden, it's just a matter of execution. If you want to be safe in the class of 267kg, it's in eighth place.

"The point is we want more tickets to the Olympics, of course at the Asian Games it will be the same for the match for tickets. The strategy is different," said the coach.

In addition to the grand prix in Qatar at the end of the year, the last two qualifying opportunities for the Olympics were the Asian championship in Uzbekistan in February and the World Cup in Phuket, Thailand in April.