'Pocket Hercules' chases fourth gold in lifting

Sydney: Turkey's Naim Suleymanoglu seeks an unprecedented fourth gold medal in men's Olympic weightlifting this month while women will make history simply by bidding for their first.

Suleymanoglu has come out of retirement in search of gold after wins in Seoul, Barcelona and Atlanta.

If he succeeds, the tiny 33-year-old, a national hero in Turkey since his defection from Bulgaria in 1986, will become only the fourth athlete in Olympic history to win the same individual event at four consecutive Games.

Danish sailor Paul Elvstrom (1948-'60) and Americans Al Oerter (discus 1956-'68) and Carl Lewis (long jump 1984'96) were the others.

Suleymanoglu will make his historic bid on Sunday in the revised 62 kg weight class where he faces tough competition from Bulgaria's Sevdalin Minchev, Croatia's Nikolay Pechalov and Chinese world champion Le Maosheng.

"I am pretty sure Naim will win," Armenia's former Olympic champion Oksen Mirzoian said. "I believe 147.5 kg in the snatch and 182.5 or 185 kg in the clean-and-jerk should be enough."

But the chances are that even if he does win, Turkey's "Pocket Hercules" will not be his country's first medal winning weightlifter of these games. On Saturday, his team mate Halil Mutlu, a 1.50-metre (4 foot 11 inches) nugget of muscle, appears certain to defend his 1996 title successfully in the 56 kg weight class and is threatening to break his own two-lift world record of 302.5 kg.

"Mutlu towers above the field," Hungary's 1972 gold medallist Imre Foldi said, evidently referring to talent rather than stature. "There has never been such a big difference between the leader and the rest of the pack."

Bring on the big guys

Later in the Games the little guys cede the platform to the super heavyweights -- the men whose necks are as wide as their heads and whose arms no longer touch their sides.

Russia's Andrei Chemerkin has won the world super heavyweight title for four years in a row since he claimed gold in Atlanta and should again be too strong for Germany's Ronny Weller, who had to settle for silver last time round.

Sydney also witnesses the Olympic debut of women's weightlifting -- 104 years after the men made their entry.

To accommodate them, the men's events have been reduced from 10 in Atlanta to eight here and the gap between top and bottom weights is narrower.

The Chinese are set to dominate having won an astonishing 240 gold medals in the 13 women's world championships to date. To put that achievement into context, rivals Taiwan are the next most successful with just 17.

Xia Zang (53 kg), Xiaomin Chen (63 kg), Weining Lin (69 kg) and super heavyweight world champion Meiyuan Ding (75 kg plus) are all potential medal winners for the Chinese.

Ding will face a stiff challenge from Polish teenager Agata Wrobel and American Cheryl Haworth, the biggest woman in the field at 131 kg.

Haworth is a 17-year-old art school student who has caused a flurry of excitement in the United States and promises to bring the American-style showbiz to Sydney which was so much a part of the weightlifting competition in Atlanta.

Doping will almost inevitably play a role here too. On Wednesday, before a weight was even lifted in anger, a Taiwanese male lifter was sent home after it was revealed he tested positive in an out-of-competition test late last month.

(c) Reuters Limited.