ENGLAND retained the Tri Nations Tournament title in Bristol on Saturday as Olympic hopefuls used the annual event to continue their preparations for this summer’s London Games.
Performances in the event, which saw some of the best weightlifters from Norway and Sweden compete with their English rivals, count towards the Olympic qualifying mark.
English athletes won all but one of the categories on Saturday, giving them an easy victory in the overall competition which uses the Sinclair Points method whereby an athlete’s bodyweight is factored in to allow athletes of different bodyweights to compete together.
London’s Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Zoe Smith hit the Olympic B standard with a total of 190kg which was good enough to finish as top female, while Birmingham’s Hannah Powell finished third with 133kg.
Another Londoner, Halil Zorba was best of the men with a total of 285kg which, although not the biggest total lifted, was an impressive performance for a 76kg athlete competing against much heavier rivals and gave him an easy victory on points.
And Bristol’s Bradley Burrows finished second, totalling 295kg, after coming into the competition at a late stage to replace Jack Oliver, who withdrew with a slight knee injury.
Shaun Clegg finished second in the junior men’s category, lifting 278kg –the heaviest of anyone in the group – and less than three points behind the winner, Oskar Svensson from Sweden.
Bristol’s Sonny Webster lifted an impressive 160kg in the clean and jerk, but having not registered a successful snatch he finished sixth.
Chi Chea from Woking won the Under-17 men’s category after lifting a total of 205kg, while team-mate Alex Johnson from Didcot finished fourth, managing the same weights as Chea but being 2.5kg heavier he missed out on a podium finish in a very tight group with less than six points separating the top four.
