KUALA LUMPUR: National weightlifter Mohamad Aniq Kasdan will have to improve on his personal best if he is to stand any chance of winning a medal in the men's 61-kilogramme (kg) event at the July 26-Aug 11 Paris Olympics.
With competition set to be intense at the Olympics, the 22-year-old knows he can use it to his advantage and lift heavier than his personal best of 296kg (126kg for snatch and 170kg for clean and jerk), which is also the national record.
If he does that, he just might find himself in the running for a medal.
Based on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic results, Mohamad Aniq could have bagged a medal had he lifted more than 300kg because China's Li Fabin clinched gold with a lift of 313kg, followed by Indonesia's Eko Yuli Irawan (302kg) and Kazakhstan's Igor Son (294kg).
At the IWF (International Weightlifting Federation) World Cup in Phuket, Thailand in April, Li again topped the 61kg category with a total lift of 312kg, with American Hampton Morris (303kg) taking silver and North Korea's Pak Myong Jin (301kg) the bronze. Mohamad Aniq could only finish in eighth spot with a total lift of 290kg.
Looking at the numbers, Mohamad Aniq is quietly confident of his chances of getting on the podium at the South Paris Arena on Aug 7 - provided, of course, he betters his personal best.
"There is only a difference of a few kilogrammes between me and my competitors. So, I have to go all out in Paris and try to lift more than what I have done so far.
"I have intensified my training regime. Previously, I was only lifting weights at about the 80 percent level and doing more set repetitions. Now, I have increased my weight burden to between 90 and 95 per cent. We also conduct simulation training every week," he told Bernama recently.
Mohamad Aniq is scheduled to leave for Antalya, Turkiye on Saturday (July 20) for a two-week training camp to acclimatise to the time difference and weather conditions in Europe before flying to Paris on Aug 3 for official training at the competition venue.
He also admitted to facing challenges in his mental preparation, speeding up his recovery process during training sessions, and maintaining a high level of self-discipline.
Malaysia has never won an Olympic medal in weightlifting, and the last national weightlifter to have competed at the Olympics was Mohd Hafifi Mansor, who featured in the 2016 edition in Rio de Janeiro in the 69kg category.
Mohd Hafifi finished 13th in a field of 21 lifters, with a total effort of 316kg to better his national record by three kilogrammes.
Profile: Mohamad Aniq Kasdan
Ager: 22
Birthplace: Segamat, Johor
Coach: Edmund Yeo Thian Chuan
Record lift: snatch 126kg, clean & jerk 170kg, total 296kg
Ranking: Eighth in Asia, ninth in the world
Achievements:
2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games gold medal (55kg category) 2021 Commonwealth Championships gold medal in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (55kg category)2023 IWF Grand Prix bronze medal in Qatar (61kg category)2021 Hanoi SEA Games bronze medal (55kg category). – BERNAMA