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Back to the Games Powerlifting records shift focus away from drugs
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Seven world records tumbled in two hours and, for a while at least, two female powerlifters pulled their sport out of the mire of another drug scandal. Jianxin Bian of China and Fatma Omar of Egypt on Saturday won the first two gold medals awarded in women's powerlifting at the Paralympics. A day after revelations that four powerlifters had failed pre-games doping tests, further tarnishing the image of weightlifting after a spate of Olympic scandals, Jianxin and Omar returned the focus to competition with a succession of world record-breaking lifts. In the 88-pound class, Jianxin bettered her own world record three times. Her first lift of 216 pounds surpassed the existing mark of 215 pounds, which she set in Bangkok, Thailand, last year. Jianxin then improved the record with lifts of 220 and 226 pounds as spectators waved Chinese flags and yelled: "Go, go, go, Chi-na; Go, go, go, Chi-na!" The defending world-record holder in the 97-pound class, Omar opened by lifting 226 pounds, besting the record of 220 pounds she set at Dubai in 1998, then improved on that. After lifting 237 pounds on her third attempt, Omar was carried off the stage by an Egyptian official. Three minutes later, she returned and lifted 240 pounds. "It came from God," Omar, who weighs 92 1/2 pounds, said when asked how she managed to lift almost three times her own body weight. "I can't explain my feelings I'm so happy. "It wasn't easy, but I am the world champion, I train hard and have the No. 1 coach -- so this is how I did it." Jianxin said it was about time the athletes got the headlines. "I'm clean," she said after undergoing drug tests. "I win because I have the ability. I am Chinese and I am proud that I'm the first woman to win a gold medal for powerlifting." But the attention returned to doping later Saturday when the International Paralympic banned three male and one female powerlifter for four years. Radko Radev of Bulgaria, Aurel Berbec of Romania, Ali Mahmoudkikordkheili of Iran and Russian female lifter Marina Diakonova had all been withdrawn from competition after failing out-of-competition tests. The introduction of women's weightlifting to Olympic competition was overshadowed last month when Bulgarian Izabela Dragneva, the sport's first female gold medalist, was stripped of her medal after her urine sample showed traces of furosemide, a banned diuretic. Two Romanian weightlifters tested positive even before the games began and were tossed out of the Olympic Village, while other weightlifters withdrew with mysterious illnesses. But if those cases and the pre-Paralympic drug busts have dented the sport's reputation, they haven't hurt its popularity. The Sydney venue was packed Saturday for the opening session.
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