On the final day in Ismailia, Hu Wenxun stepped to the bar in the women's super-heavyweight session and rewrote the limits of her age group. The fifteen-year-old from China snatched 125 kilograms, then clean and jerked 163, for a total of 288. Three youth world records fell in one appearance. The total is the highest ever recorded by a female youth lifter, and it matches the figure that earned Emily Campbell an Olympic bronze medal in Paris.
The competition ran close to the end. Hu finished second, behind her team-mate Zhang Yuxin, who closed on 290. The margin was two kilograms, and it might have been narrower still. Hu's only miss came on her last attempt, a clean and jerk at 166. Had it stood, the order at the top could have changed. Behind the two Chinese lifters, Tuana Suren of Türkiye took third on 247, some 43 kilograms back. The scale told part of the story: Hu weighed in at 123 kilograms, and her numbers on the day surpassed the winning totals of three senior continental champions crowned only weeks earlier.
A record built in daylight
The old mark had stood for years. The previous best youth total by a woman was 272, set by Nadezhda Nogay of Kazakhstan in 2011. Hu cleared it by 16. What makes the figure heavier still is its context. She had lifted internationally only once before, at the Asian Youth Games in Bahrain last year, where she also claimed all three youth world records on 115-152-267. Ismailia was her second appearance abroad. She improved every one of those records again.
The path to the platform was ordinary before it was not. Hu has trained for seven years, having started at school. Her reason, she admitted, was modest.
"I started weightlifting because I wanted to lose weight," she said, laughing.
It did not work as planned. Her best training lifts, she said, were 120 and 165, so the snatch in particular pleased her. She remains eligible for youth competition until the end of 2027, which means the record she holds may only be threatened by the person who set it. Her next date is the World Youth Championships in Colombia in July, where China is sending a team of one.
The trajectory
Chinese women hold the super-heavyweight world records at youth, junior and senior level, and Hu Wenxun now sits at the base of that line. She is too young for the senior ranks and too young, by the calendar, for the Los Angeles Games. Time is the one thing she is not short of. Bahrain gave the first sign. Ismailia confirmed it.
She lifted a woman's total, and she is still a schoolgirl.
