Good newsEleven World Records Fall in One Session as Younes Beats López by 3kg
At the weightlifting world championships in Ningbo, Egypt's Mohamed Younes won the men's 85kg title with a 390kg total after he and Colombia's Yeison López swapped the world record five times. Five snatch, one clean and jerk and five total records fell.
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Mohamed Younes needed one last lift to win the men’s 85kg title in Ningbo, and Yeison López missed his answer by a single kilogram. Younes, a 21-year-old from Egypt, finished with a 390kg total on Monday. López, the Colombian who won Olympic silver in 2024, took silver on 387kg. Between them they moved the world record five times in one evening, and the International Weightlifting Federation counts eleven records in the session.
How the records fell
By the count in the Xinhua report carried by The Peninsula, the session produced five snatch records, one in the clean and jerk and five in the total. Younes set the first snatch mark at 174kg. López won the snatch with 178kg on his last attempt, after missing his opener of 175kg and making it second time. Younes took silver in the snatch with 177kg, and Moldova’s Marin Robu was third, according to Panam Sports.
The previous snatch record was 173kg, set by Kazakhstan’s Alexey Churkin in September, Panam Sports says. López beat it by five kilograms. In the clean and jerk, North Korea’s Ro Kwang Ryol lifted 215kg, one kilogram above his own record, then missed 220kg. He still won the discipline ahead of China’s Lei Jiangqing on 214kg and Younes on 213kg.
Chart: GoodBad. Data from the IWF results as reported by Xinhua and Panam Sports, 2 November 2026. Lei’s snatch is his 382kg total minus his clean and jerk.
The duel for the total
The total produced the best of it. Younes first raised the record to 381kg with a 204kg clean and jerk. López answered with 383kg. The two traded the lead five times, until Younes made a final lift that took his total to 390kg. López had one more chance, at 213kg in the clean and jerk, which would have given him 391kg and the title. He missed. China’s Lei took bronze with 382kg.
López lifted 178kg in the snatch and 209kg in the clean and jerk, which makes his 387kg. The title turned on the clean and jerk: Younes lifted 4kg more there and 1kg less in the snatch. On the night, Younes left as total gold medallist, snatch silver medallist and clean and jerk bronze medallist.
Why it matters
The championships in Ningbo are the first qualifying event for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, Xinhua reported. It was speaking about the women’s event on Sunday, where China’s Pei Xinyi, 21, broke world records on her way to the 61kg title. Pei lifted 112kg in the snatch and 142kg in the clean and jerk for a 254kg total, completing four world-record performances in the session. Her clean and jerk beat a 139kg mark set at the Asian Games last month. Colombia’s Karen Mosquera took snatch silver on 111kg, a personal best.
In the men’s 85kg class, three lifters from three continents finished within eight kilograms of one another: 390, 387 and 382kg. Younes’s coach said this was only a start, according to the Peninsula report. The next test is how many of these marks survive the next major meeting, because records set in a duel are often the ones that last the shortest time. Those totals now set the benchmark that lifters chasing Los Angeles places will be measured against.
