PARIS (AP) — Hampton Morris doesn’t have a driver’s license. He does have an Olympic bronze medal.
The 20-year-old who trains in his storage at house in Marietta, Georgia, on Wednesday grew to become the primary U.S. males’s weightlifter to take house a medal of any colour on the Video games in 4 a long time.
Narrowly lacking out on a world file that will have gotten him silver, Morris adopted Mario Martinez and Man Carlton from Los Angeles in 1984 as the newest American males to medal on the Olympics.
“It’s superb that I’m in a position to go away that sort of mark within the sport,” Morris mentioned after ending third within the males’s 61-kilogram division. “I’m simply in disbelief.”
Li Fabin of China defended his Olympic weightlifting title after getting into because the overwhelming favourite to repeat. The 31-year-old set a Video games snatch file by lifting 143 kilograms (315 kilos) on his third and ultimate try, paving the way in which for gold when he bought to 167 kilograms (368 kilos) within the clear and jerk for a rating of 310.
“It was a easy competitors,” Li mentioned via an interpreter. “I adopted the directions from my workforce, and I easily received the gold medal.”
Li grew to become the primary weightlifter with back-to-back Olympic titles since Naim Suleymanoglu of Turkey received three in a row from 1988-96. Theerapong Silachai of Thailand bought the silver for medal at 303.
China defended one other gold medal hours later when Hou Zhihui received the ladies’s 49-kilogram division. Hou set an Olympic clear and jerk file at 117 kilograms on her third and ultimate try to go Mihaela Cambei of Romania by one level, 206-205.
Cambei earned silver in her nation’s return to the Video games following its ban from Tokyo in 2021 for previous doping circumstances, and Thailand’s Surodchana Khambao was at 200 for bronze. American Jourdan Delacruz was fifth.
Morris, who’s coached by his father, Tripp, bought emotional with the bronze medal hanging round his neck when he started speaking about what his mom, Anne Marie, and his sister, Etta, quit so he can elevate at such a excessive stage. His grandmother Debbie drives him to bodily remedy each week.
“I don’t have anyplace else to go, so I by no means had any actual have to get my driver’s license,” Morris mentioned. “I’m planning to get it very quickly. I’ve just about discovered tips on how to drive. I simply haven’t taken the check but.”
That could be a short-term aim. Doing higher in Los Angeles in 2028 — most likely shifting up a weight class subsequent time — is for down the road.
Till now, his precedence was getting on the rostrum in Paris, one thing that was threatened when he slipped on his first clear and jerk. USA Gymnastics senior director of sport efficiency Mike Gattone, standing close by, mentioned, “That’s the third man I’ve seen slip on that platform.”
Morris moved the bar ahead for his second try and was profitable on the 172 kilogram (379 pound) elevate that put him in medal place at 298. Locked right into a medal, he went for a clear and jerk world file try of 178 kilograms (392 kilos) and got here up simply in need of finishing it.
“I knew I had it in me,” mentioned Morris, the youngest U.S. weightlifter on the Olympics since Cheryl Haworth in 2000. “Some other day, I might undoubtedly have a shot at making it. Right this moment I had a shot of constructing it.”
4-time Olympic medalist Eko Yuli Irawan of Indonesia, the oldest weightlifter within the class at age 35, injured his proper hip or leg on his unsuccessful ultimate elevate. He limped off with help after failing to make a elevate within the clear and jerk, stopping him from extending his lead as his nation’s most embellished Olympian.
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