All Things Gym

Best of Olympic Weightlifting

Home » China » Tian Tao 220kg Clean & (Squat) Jerk

About Gregor Winter

Hi, I run ATG.

Follow me on instagram @gregorwinter (and ATG @atginsta).

Comments

    • wlift84 says

      The national team is in the winter training camp since early January (until March IIRC). But yeah, this shows that he’s not injured and has quite a reserve of power/strength.

      • Victor says

        Wait, are Lu Xiaojun and Liao Hui running around giving seminars when they should be in winter training camp??

          • Victor says

            A seminar is running now in Houston. Are they not there? Would people pay the hundreds of dollars that the entrance fees cost to go to a seminar when they’re not there?

            • wlift84 says

              I find no indication that they’re intended to be there. L+L were in the US only for a week or so.

              I assume China still has control over their athletes, not like a certain Eurasian country (cough Aukhadov).

              • Victor says

                OK, cool, cus I thought they had lost their flippin’ minds if they put off training to do seminars, especially with Lu nearly bombing his last competition on the clean and jerk.

  2. wlift84 says

    Haha, liveblogging Tian Tao, this was uploaded by him just a few hours ago. 😀

    Fully expect something like 175+220 at Nationals to send a message.

  3. Eric Xu says

    Goddamn that is one powerful dude. The record he just (unofficially) broke is almost as old as he is.

  4. Sam says

    did Tian Tao have a slight injury during Worlds because once he went slightly below parallel he would miss the lift ?? but in this video, he looks fantastic.

    • Victor says

      I don’t know if you could use that to point to an injury; looks like a small balancing error to me. Missing a WR by a hair at the bottom of the jerk after cleaning it easily doesn’t scream something’s terribly wrong with his health to me. His 220 jerk here looked shakier than his 218 in Incheon and in this video, his jumps seem more deliberate than either his 218 or 219. Might be a development on his technique; he could have gotten stronger and more explosive.

    • wlift84 says

      Nope. Those lifters should try to repeat those lifts while undergoing current drug testing. Since that’s not possible Russia/Bulgaria should replicate the results today. Oh wait, they’re not capable of that either.
      Those records were discarded/frozen for a reason and have no relevance as a contemporary threshold.

      • Henry VIII says

        So they shouldn’t try to lift 225? What, should elieko bring out infinitesimally decreasing decimal plates so we can forever approach 225 but never hit it?

        • Victor says

          What? Sure, they should try to lift 225, hell, they can try to lift 250. I’ll try to lift 225 too, course, I should first hit 125… Point is, GHM suggested that these guys today are amateurs compared to the old greats and wlift84 said that it’s not a valid comparison and not valid to discredit today’s lifters based on what the old Soviets did because today’s drug testing environment is different.

          • Henry VIII says

            I see cheers! Didn’t read that into GHM’s post, I thought he was just putting the vids up to motivate the 85s!

  7. GU says

    If he split jerked, he’d already be WR holder. Can’t understand why you’d squat jerk. Power jerk I understand–squat jerk makes no sense.

    • Victor says

      In an interview, he said that for some reason, his weird jerk was the best for him. All his coaches tried to get him to split jerk, but he lost 20kg for it and at that time, his max was only like 160. Squat jerk makes no sense to me either, but I’m sure these World/Olympic champions know what they’re doing and I wouldn’t tell them to do something as if they and their coaches haven’t explored every inch of that possibility already before deciding on doing what they do.

    • yopete525 says

      I used to think that too, because the time under tension is ridiculous and it seems like they have an extremely low margin for error/are all extremely laborious lifts. But I’ve got to think that he’s jerking this way because he lifts the most this way… end of story. If he could split jerk the same weights I have no doubt he would.

    • Sam says

      my thinking was you already had to front squat the weight up. …. why would you want to squat it again … haha

    • Vaichyon says

      Squat jerkers do the squat jerk, as a last resort. They do not have the leg drive to send the bar high enough to catch it with a split, hence the drop into a deep overhead squat. It’s not ideal by any means, but it is the least worst.

    • Wynn says

      There is a trade off between squat jerk and split jerk. Ideally speaking, if you can balance your body perfectly, squat jerk is more natural to jerk and can achieve heavier weight. Just like decades ago, people were still using split snatch, but now, split snatch is gone.