Khalaf picks up bronze as top two break new ground - Seventh Fazza IPC Powerlifting World Cup 2016

• Emirati para-powerlifter has to settle for third after Egyptian and Iranian’s world record-breaking feats

Dubai, February 21, 2016 - Mohammed Khamis Khalaf won the UAE’s first senior medal at the Seventh Fazza IPC Powerlifting World Cup - Dubai 2016 with bronze in the men’s U88kgs category at the Dubai Club for the Disabled.

Spurred on by a raucous home crowd inside the indoor sports hall here, the gold medalist at the 2004 Athens Paralympics was successful with all three of his lifts, raising the bar each time from 215kgs to 222kgs and then 227kgs.

However, in an extraordinary display of showmanship and strength, Khalaf’s impressive efforts were only good enough for third as Egyptian Hany Abdelhady and Iran’s Seyedhamed Solhipouravanji scrapped it out over silver and gold.

Solhipouravanji (228kgs) led by one kilogram from Adbelhady (227kgs) heading into the third and final round, where the latter threw down the gauntlet by lifting 231kgs to set a new world record.

Egypt thus seemed set to snare yet another gold medal at this prestigious meeting, yet Solhipouravanji had other ideas and he subsequently bench-pressed 232kgs to take the top spot of the podium and incrementally better Abdelhady’s prior marker.

The Egyptian gamely continued into an almost academic and redundant fourth stage, where he sensationally posted a tit for tat, third world record in quick succession with 233kgs.

Solhipouravanji sportingly tried to respond with a crack at 233.5kgs, but - with insufficient time to prepare for another bold bid at a global milestone - he just couldn’t quite manage it and Solhipouravanji ultimately took away the gold and Abdelhady the world record.

Solhipouravanji and Abdelhady had locked out the top two positions on the podium with a topsy-turvy tussle of world record-breaking proportions, so there was no disgrace in Khalaf’s third-place finish in such esteemed company.

“I feel I did well and - even though I’m yet to recapture my old form - it was still a good performance,” Khalaf said. “You saw the challenge I’m facing here as the Egyptian (Abdelhady) and the Iranian (Solhipouravanji) are the best. A bronze medal was a good outcome in the circumstances and I hope to put up even more of a challenge by lifting more than this particular weight (227kgs) in Rio de Janeiro.”

The Iran-Egypt one-two was reversed in the men’s U97kgs event, where Mohamed Eldib set another new world record with a lift of 243kgs to see him finish well clear of the Iranian runner-up Saman Razi (222kgs), with Ukraine’s Anton Kriukov (221kgs) back in third.

Egypt’s dominance on the medals table continued as well in the women’s U79kgs and U86kgs competitions, where Geehan Hassan (120kgs) and Randa Mahmoud (140kgs) picked up a silver and gold medal respectively. Jordan’s Tharwh Tayseer Hamdan Alhajaj (119kgs, Silver) and Olga Kazankevich (119kgs, Bronze), of Russia, joined Mahmoud on the podium in the U86kgs weight class, whereas Hassan had Ukrainian Lyubov Semenyuk (102kgs, Bronze) and Vera Muratova (126kgs, Gold) as medal ceremony companions in the U79kgs top three.

This event is held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Sports Council (DSC) and organized and supervised by the Dubai Club for the Disabled, with the support of their strategic partners the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Heritage Center (HHC) and in cooperation with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the General Authority for Youth and Sports Welfare (GAYSW), the DSC and the UAE Paralympic Committee.