DONGGUAN, South China, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- Kim Kum Sok won the first gold medal for DPR Korea at the 16th Guangzhou Asian Games as he won the men's 69kg weightlifting here on Monday.
Kim totalled 324kg for the title, beating Iran's Rezaeian Morteza, who also finished at 324kg in total, to the second place with a lower bodyweight.
It is also the first gold medal taken by other teams except China in weightlifting after China made a clean sweep in the first two days' competition. With the absence of world champion Liao Hui of China, other teams gained the chance to break the dominance of China.
Morteza, who finished sixth in the snatch at last month's world championships, had a better start by snatching 147kg to take a 4kg-lead against Kim.
Lagging behind in the snatch, Kim showed his advantage in the clean and jerk by hoisting 181kg in his second attempt, and increased his total to 324kg, the same as Morteza's since the 21-year-old Iranian only jerked 177kg.
Kim therefore clinched the first gold for his country with a 0.31kg-bodyweight advantage against Morteza. The bronze medal was taken by Triyatno of Indonesia at 321kg.
Newly-crowned world champion Liao Hui missed the Guangzhou Asiad due to a shoulder injury. As the best lifter in men's 69kg, Liao presented an impressive performance by breaking the world records of jerk and total at Turkey world championships in September.
Having won in the Beijing Olympic Games and the world championships, Liao only needs an Asiad gold to accomplish a "grand slam".
"Unfortunately, I have to give up the Asian Games because of the injury, and my grand slam dream is therefore broken," said the 23-year-old lifter on his blog.
