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11th Aug 2016

WATCH: Weightlifter produces great celebration after winning gold and setting world record

Alan Loughnane

It was all worth it for this moment…

Nijat Rahimov won gold in the 77kg men’s weightlifting last night when he produced a heroic final lift to dethrone 2012 gold medalist Lyu Xiaojun.

Rahimov was down by 9kg going into his final lift yesterday, with Xiaojun already celebrating and convinced he’d won a second gold medal.

But the Kazakstan athlete threw caution to the wind and upped his weight by 12kg to 214kg in an attempt to clinch gold.

Here’s the result…

https://twitter.com/QuickTempa/status/763521942246744064

However, while the joyous scenes are absolutely brilliant to watch and it’s clear that all the athletes put in a lot of hard work, there’s been some suspicion of Rahimov’s achievement.

Rahimov returned from a doping ban last year and immediately after he broke the 15-year-old world record with his 214kg lift, questions were raised about possible doping.

On Tuesday, Taiwanese gold medal contender Lin Tzu-Chi was withdrawn from competition prior to her event for abnormalities in her drug test.

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