It takes muscle, technique and a lot of nerve to put 413 pounds of iron over your head, especially when the tonnage represents roughly three times your body weight. The bar bows, red and green disks like locomotive wheels sagging around your ears. Takes nerve, mostly, if you've never lifted that much before. By hoisting a world-record 413 pounds in the clean and jerk, Suleymanoglu upheld his reputation as the Pocket Hercules. photograph by Jim Gund And nobody had, not on this podium. This was uncharted territory for 141-pound weightlifters, even for these dueling diesels, the Turk and the Greek. In the first half, the snatch, their brinksmanship seemed comical. The Pocket Hercules, Turkey's Naim Suleymanoglu, committed to one weight and then decided it was insufficient to his reputation. "Stop the clock!" the announcer shouted. "Suleymanoglu wants more!" By the time Suleymanoglu and his chief rival, Greece's Valerios Leonidis, who trailed by just over five pounds, decided to make their first attempts in the clean and jerk, everyone else was out. Greece's Leonidis was undaunted in his weighty battle with the tiny Turk, but in the end he proved only second strongest. photograph by Tom Lynn But the two had placed themselves at a perilous brink. The Pocket Hercules would take his first attempt at 396 pounds; although the two-time gold medalist had lifted more in his life, it was a ridiculous entry point. But the Turk made it, and then so did the Greek. Everyone in the hall sensed a shoot-out developing. Suleymanoglu, in a preemptive strike, upped the weight 11 more pounds, to 407 ("He wants more!") and shattered the world record. And then a desperate Leonidis cleared 413—10 more than his previous world record—for the lead. There was no avoiding traffic during these Olympics, even before the qualifying heats of the women's eights. photograph by Bill Eppridge The colored weights had been like huge casino chips all day; in his final turn, Suleymanoglu seemed to realize he had made a bet he might not be able to cover. He stood at the bar for as long as he could, touched it daintily with two fingers, and then heaved it in two motions to the sky. Pandemonium! The sight was bizarre: a man 4'11", motionless under slightly bouncing weights. Leonidis was perhaps broken by the vision. To win he would need to lift 418-3/4 in his final try and, really, that was too much. Everybody knew it. So the Greek, his reservoir of nerve emptied, grasped the bar but—too much!—couldn't lift it beyond a squat before dropping it to the podium where it finally rested, where that much weight, everybody realized, really belonged. SI Olympic Commemorative Day: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17