Seven Georgian sportsmen competed in the 78th World Weightlifting Championship which was held in the city of Turkey, Antalya. It was known that our athletes could not fight for prize places and their main goal was to gain license rating points for 2012 London Summer Olympics. Giorgi Asanidze, chairman of Parliament Sport Committee, vice-president of Weightlifting Federation and Olympic champion, confirmed this information before leaving for Turkey.
Our team is among 24 teams which means that they gained 3 Olympic licenses.
Gia Machavariani (105 kg) showed the best result. He lifted 390 kg and took the 8th place. Teimuraz Gogia who was competing in the same weight class took the 21st place. Raul Tsirekidze (85 kg) took the 17th place with 341 kg. Vaja Gongadze and Temur Chkhaidze (94 kg) were in the 21st and the 35th places. Irakli Turmanidze took the 12th place. Lasha Talakhadze lost the competition. Totally, our team collected 57 license points and is in the 21st place which is enough to gain three licenses for London Olympics.
Giorgi Asanidze estimated the previous tournament: "Youth team competed in Antalya and gained 57 points should be considered as positive result. Though, we should not have a sense of complacency. We should try to keep these points at World Championship which will take place in France next year. We will prove, that results showed in Antalya were not accidental".


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