China's Olympic weightlifting gold medalist confident to lift heavier load in fu

HONG KONG, Dec. 9 -- Chinese Olympic weightlifting gold medallist Lu Yong said on Wednesday that he has confidence in the possibility for him to lift a heavier load in the future.

"My weightlifting results in training have surpassed the world records. I believe I can still improve my results significantly in the next few years given my current health and experience," he said after taking gold for the 85kg category of men's weightlifting at the ongoing East Asian Games on Wednesday.

Lu, 23, lifted 170kg in snatch and 200kg in clean and jerk, both far ahead of the runner-up.

Cheon Jeong-pyung of South Korea took silver with a combined weight of 333kg, and Japan's Yuji Yoshioka took the bronze medal at 320kg.

The existing snatch world record for the 85kg men's weightlifting is 187kg, the clean and jerk 218kg and the combined total, 394kg.

Lu said he was trying to "show the best of the Chinese weightlifting" despite exhaustion after recent frequent participation in weightlifting competitions including the National Games and the World Championships.

China won four of the nine gold medals in the first three weightlifting competition days at the 5th East Asian Games. Several relatively inexperienced lifters, however, lost when competing against their rivals from South Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.¡¡