Hamidreza Mohammaditanha reached for the bar six times in Ismailia, and six times it went overhead. The Iranian super-heavyweight lifted 180kg in the snatch and 221kg in the clean and jerk for a 401kg total, a flawless card that returned him to the top of the junior world podium for the second year running. On the final day of the IWF World Junior Championships, he did not so much win the category as close it.
Six from six in Egypt
The super-heavyweight session became a question of nerve rather than strength. Omadillo Olimov of Uzbekistan threatened to ruin Iran's 1-2 finish when he made his final attempt to finish on 388kg, but Taha Nemati responded with his fifth good lift to take silver on 172-220-392. Selahattin Altin of Turkiye took the snatch bronze on 170kg and finished fourth. Through it all Mohammaditanha stayed clear, unhurried, his total untouched. Iran finished 1-2 in both of the heaviest men's categories for the second year in a row, putting them top of the men's medal table despite their late arrival in Ismailia and their disrupted preparations.
Those disruptions were not trivial. When the Championships began, Iran's participation was uncertain; the Egyptian sports minister, after prompting from the IWF president Mohammed Jalood, helped to clear the way for the team's visas, and they arrived only on Tuesday. The team's one-month training camp had been cancelled because of the war, and the juniors — whose head coach is the 2016 Olympic champion Sohrab Moradi — trained alongside the seniors for two weeks instead. Iran's four heaviest men collectively weighed 528kg and lifted 1,580kg, slightly up on the previous year in both body weight and kilos lifted.
A title held, not inherited
The result reads as continuity, but continuity in this weight class is rare. Mohammaditanha now owns two junior world titles in the super-heavyweights, a category Iran has made its own. He follows in a specific lineage: Alireza Nasiri won the year before — his second junior world title — and set junior world records of 231kg in the clean and jerk and 414kg on total at the senior World Championships in Norway. That is the standard against which Mohammaditanha now measures himself, and 401kg on a clean sheet is a serious answer to it.
What separates this performance from a year ago is not only the numbers but the manner. Iran's stars on the day were Abolfazl Zare, who hit the 400kg mark to win at 110kg, and Hamidreza Mohammaditanha, who won the super-heavyweights for the second straight year with a six-from-six 180-221-401. To defend a world title without a single missed attempt, after a broken build-up and a journey that cost the team its rest, speaks to composure rather than luck.
The bar came down. The record stood. Mohammaditanha walked off with the same title and a steadier hand.
