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Stars aligning once again for Greek Weightlifting team
By Chris Galakoutis
| Monday, October 9 2006 1:00:09 AM |
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The 2006 Greek weightlifting team, one short on experience but long on injuries, arrived in Santo Domingo over a week ago with several question marks. It departed late Sunday afternoon feeling pretty good about the week of competition just passed. Those pleasant thoughts may go a long way in making the grueling return flight to Athens a little more bearable.
In a spectacular finale on Saturday, made more so not only by the awe inspiring spectacle of enormous men lifting enormous weights but also the presence of world champion and across the board world record holder Hossein Reza Zadeh of Iran, Dimitris Papageridis put in the best performance of his young career on a world stage with his 5th place finish in the snatch, and 6th place overall.
Papageridis, at 20 years old, was the youngest of eleven competitors in the +105 kgs “A” group. He weighed in at 137 kgs (302 lbs), and went on to lift just over 400 lbs in the snatch and 488 lbs in the clean and jerk. Afterwards, Papageridis said: “If anyone had told me beforehand I would finish 6th overall at the World Championships, I would have been quite happy. Nevertheless, I could have lifted more weight in both categories, and in future events the goal is to have six successful lifts.
“It is a very tough group in the super-heavyweights with athletes like Reza Zadeh, Udachyn of Ukraine and Scerbatihs of Latvia. |
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Dimitris Papageridis
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"Those athletes are the biggest stars of world weightlifting. I will continue to look them in the eyes despite it being an extremely difficult thing to do.”
Nikos Kourtidis, the other 20-year-old with tremendous talent, put on a very respectable show in Santo Domingo as well, despite suffering a shoulder injury the week before the team departed for the Caribbean island. He made all three attempts in the snatch, placing 5th with 173 kgs on his 3rd attempt. The 4th place finisher in the snatch, overall silver medalist Szymon Kolecki of Poland, also lifted the same 173 kgs, but finished ahead of Kourtidis on a slight body weight differential.
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