Here is Kianoush Rostami‘s 178kg Snatch from the Almaty 2014 World Championships which set him up to become the new world champion.
With one big breath and a little hop forward on each attempt, the 23 year old Iranian, who started weightlifting at the age of 13, went 3/3 in the Snatch. 173, 176 and 178 , which was only surpassed by Ivan Markov’s 179kg.
(Video also on Facebook and on ATG’s Instagram @atginsta)
Afterwards at the press conference Kianoush, who’s English is pretty good by the way, said that came for the Clean & Jerk world record.
“I’m angry I didn’t get it,” he said. “But I will do it.”
He did that weight multiple times in training. What’s even more remarkable is that he did the 220kg C&Js it at 85kg and even 83kg bodyweight!
At this point in the press conference, Ivan Markov, with a smile on his face (can you believe it?), turns on his mic and says “you are a strong man”.
But the WR wasn’t meant to fall that day. In the Clean & Jerk Kianoush missed opener at 211, which threw him off. So much so that he also missed his second attempt. He was angry and said “my mind was still busy”, “God helped me with the 213”.
If I do world record, I can go up to 94kg. Now I stay.
He then took the opportunity to address his troubled past in the Iranian national team under former coach Kourosh Bagheri.
As you know he along with Behdad and others left the national team, because they disagreed with how he ran things. He is the reason Kianoush wasn’t allowed to lift at the 2013 worlds. During this time he and the others thought about quitting the sport all together.
“Bagheri is a bad man”, he openly said. “I am not a man who usually talks bad about people, but this is the truth.”. Kianoush said that he and the others were constantly bullied and the training program injured many of them. He assured us that this is not only Kianoush’s, but the opinion of everyone on the team. A couple of days later Behdad Salimi mentioned the same conflict during the +105kg press conference (although I was not present there to take notes).
I certainly applaud Kianoush for not holding back and telling the world how bad the situation in his country was.
Man… the 85 class is amazing right now.
So many incredible lifters, who also happen to be interesting characters and just all-around cool guys.
Tian Tao, Rostami, Markov, Okulov, Aukhadov (assuming injury free), Alimov. So stacked…
So if he started weightlifting at 13 that means he won his first world championship 8 years into the sport. I wonder if his timeline is more or less indicative of other world champions’. I think most would be a little more than 8 years, maybe around 10 or so.
Rostami is a liar . just because he is a great weightlifter you can’t believe his words. he boycotted the team in 2013, it’s not like they didn’t let him compete. he claims they had so many injuries under Bagheri, what about this year with “new coach ” (who was Salimi’s puppet) how many injuries they had this year under “new training” ?
Don’t call him a liar unless you can back things up with facts.
Can he does the same ? there are facts but I can’t write them in just 3-4 lines here. this is only what he and Salimi claim (and maybe somehow Nasirshalal) there were more than 10-20 weightlifters in the national camp and none of them are agree with them. some of them are retired now means they have nothing to lose. things started after the Olympics , you can go back and watch the Olympics and you can’t see any kind of problems between them. this is very simple, Bagheri is a tough coach and after winning Olympic medal these guys thought now they have enough power to change the coach. since they wanted a more-relaxed coach. you could see Salimi brought his wife to backstage between Snatch and CJ competitions, which was impossible if Bagheri was still the coach.
beside that, Rostami is obviously lying about the injuries. they had much more injuries this year. Molaei, Sharifi and Barari missed the WC, Mohammadpour left the camp because of injuries very early. Taghian got injured after the Asian Games. and I don’t want to mention younger guys who got injured during the training period. they started with something like 20 weightlifters but at the end they could not even make a 8-man team because of injuries. they had to use Taghian (despite his injury) and Behrouzi (despite his heart issue) .
Is there a video of the press conference?I would really like to watch the whole thing .
I don’t have video, but there were camera crews there…
i believe rostami. his face doesn’t look like liar. very handsome.
Rostami and Salimi both seem to jump forward a bit in the snatch and the clean. Otherwise, most lifters at the elite level seem to jump backwards (my own view after watching the sport a few years on Youtube and live streams). does anyone know if the Iranians teach this or if it’s just a peculiarity for the mentioned lifters?