Lifters set 25 senior world records at the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, between 23 and 29 September, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) reported on 2 October, and North Korea accounted for 15 of them. Several of the marks went to lifters who finished second or third in their class, among them China's He Yueji, Japan's Masanori Miyamoto and Kazakhstan's Alexey Churkin.
North Korea won seven of the 16 titles and topped the medal table, ahead of China and Iran, according to the IWF. A count of the winners named in its report gives China five golds, Iran two, and Indonesia and Uzbekistan one each.
The records came less than two months after the IWF's revised bodyweight categories took effect on 1 August. A count from the list published by the Games organisers, AINAGOC, shows that 19 of the 25 were set in the seven classes whose limits changed, while the other six came in classes that kept their old limits.
How the benchmarks were set
For the redrawn classes, the IWF did not carry existing marks across. According to its 5 August announcement, the federation built a performance trendline from the previous records and standards, derived reference values for each new class from that line, and then adjusted those values to 98%. The stated aim was "to create realistic and achievable World Standards while maintaining their prestige".
The IWF's report on the Nagoya results does not link the number of records to that method. Four men's classes (60, 65, 110 and +110kg) and five women's classes (53, 69, 77, 86 and +86kg) kept their limits, and with them their existing records and standards.
Records fell in those unchanged classes as well: three in the women's 69kg, and one each in the men's 65kg, 110kg and +110kg.
Where the 25 records fell
| Class | Limit changed on 1 August | Records | Set by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Women 49kg | Yes | 3 | Ri Song Gum (North Korea) |
| Women 57kg | Yes | 3 | Oh Kwang Ok (North Korea) |
| Women 61kg | Yes | 3 | Yang Liuyue (China), snatch and total; Pak Jin Hae (North Korea), clean and jerk, matched by Yang |
| Women 69kg | No | 3 | Song Kuk Hyang (North Korea) |
| Men 65kg | No | 1 | He Yueji (China), snatch |
| Men 70kg | Yes | 3 | Ri Won Ju (North Korea), clean and jerk and total; Masanori Miyamoto (Japan), snatch |
| Men 75kg | Yes | 3 | Rahmat Erwin (Indonesia), clean and jerk and total; Ri Chong Song (North Korea), snatch |
| Men 85kg | Yes | 3 | Ro Kwang Ryol (North Korea), clean and jerk and total; Alexey Churkin (Kazakhstan), snatch |
| Men 95kg | Yes | 1 | Ali Alipour (Iran), total |
| Men 110kg | No | 1 | Akbar Djuraev (Uzbekistan), snatch |
| Men +110kg | No | 1 | Ali Ammar Yusur (Iraq), snatch |
The performances behind the numbers
Song Kuk Hyang produced the most one-sided result. The North Korean won the women's 69kg on 26 September with a 121kg snatch and a 152kg clean and jerk, and her 273kg total made it records in all three columns. She declined her final attempt after five good lifts and finished 41kg clear of the Olympic medallist Chen Wen-Huei of Chinese Taipei. The IWF said she scored more than 1,300 GAMX points and was the top individual of the Games "by some distance".
Ri Song Gum had opened the weightlifting programme on 23 September with records in all three columns at 49kg, on 94-121-215. India's Mirabai Chanu took silver on 87-111-198, her first Asian Games medal, and said she had "added another milestone to my career". Oh Kwang Ok, an international debutant, followed with 104-134-238 at 57kg; asked about her plans, she said: "The Olympic Games in 2028 are my target", according to the South China Morning Post.
At 61kg the two leading nations met head-on. Pak Jin Hae set a clean and jerk record of 139kg on a 248kg total after missing her second snatch attempt, the first miss by a North Korean woman in the competition, but 19-year-old Yang Liuyue of China matched the 139kg, won on 112-139-251 and added the snatch and total records. "I panicked a bit but I gave it everything," Yang said, and she predicted that she would better Pak's clean and jerk mark at the World Championships in Ningbo.
In the men's competition, Ri Won Ju won the 70kg on 151-198-349, improving the clean and jerk mark by 9kg and the total by 12kg. Japan's Miyamoto was second on 342kg, with a 154kg snatch record. At 75kg, Rahmat Erwin trailed at halfway, then lifted 206kg in the clean and jerk to finish on 366kg, 1kg ahead of the Olympic silver medallist Weeraphon Wichuma of Thailand.
The 85kg class went to Ro Kwang Ryol on 165-214-379. He had previously competed at 88kg, 89kg and 96kg. Churkin's 173kg snatch was a record in second place, and China's Chen Shunnan, 21, missed his first two snatch attempts and still left with bronze on 374kg.
The final class was decided by a single kilogram. Ali Ammar Yusur, 22, snatched 219kg and reached 465kg after five good lifts, but a timing error, in the IWF's account, meant he failed to make his final attempt. Iran's Ali Davoudi, 17kg behind with two attempts left, jumped 18kg, made the lift and won on 206-260-466 to Ali Ammar's 219-246-465.
GAMX: one scale for every bodyweight
The IWF announced the introduction of GAMX points as an official points system on 22 April 2026. The model was developed by Dr Marianne Huebner, a professor at Michigan State University, and is based on a peer-reviewed statistical analysis of World Championships and Olympic results. It estimates average performance and variability for each bodyweight and sex in the snatch, the clean and jerk and the total, which allows lifters from different classes, and from both sexes, to be compared on a common scale. The IWF recognises two points systems: GAMX and Robi points.
Olympic classes and the road to Ningbo
The Los Angeles 2028 programme uses six classes for each sex: 65, 75, 85, 95, 110 and +110kg for men, and 53, 61, 69, 77, 86 and +86kg for women, according to the IWF list as reported by USA Weightlifting. Nine of the 25 Nagoya records came in classes that are not on that programme: women's 49kg and 57kg, and men's 70kg.
The South China Morning Post noted that North Korea did not send athletes to the delayed Tokyo Olympics during its pandemic border closure and was too late to qualify in weightlifting for Paris 2024. The newspaper also reported that the World Anti-Doping Agency lifted non-compliance restrictions on the country in January 2024, and that the International Testing Agency carried out out-of-competition testing there the following month. Team manager Jang Song-nam said: "Our athletes put in so much hard work."
The Asian Games close on 4 October. The IWF World Championships open in Ningbo, China, on 27 October and run until 8 November.