Fares Ibrahim Hassouna Wins 6th Qatar International Cup in Weighlifting

Qatar hosted the 6th edition of the Qatar International Cup which started from 19th December and concluded on 23rd December 2019. Star Qatarian weightlifter Fares Ibrahim Hassouna won the gold medal in the 96 kg category on Sunday and booked his place in next year’s Tokyo Olympics Games. He topped the Men’s Robi Points table with a 907.344 mark as well.

He came up with a notable performance to push the Rio Olympics gold medallist (85kg category), Kianoush Rostami of Iran to the second spot in the standings with 899.904 points in Qatar International Cup. Turkey’s Daniyar Ismayilov, the silver winner in Rio who made a clean sweep in the men’s 73 weight class, finished third with 836.448 Robi points.

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The 21-year old two-time Junior World Champion and a gold medalist in the 2018 Asian Games lifted 404kgs (176kg+228kg) to push Rostami to second place.

The Qatar International Cup is held under the supervision and organization of the IWF (International Weightlifting Federation) and also the QWF (Qatar Weightlifting Federation). The tournament has been held from the year 2015 onwards with editions in 2016 and 2018. The inaugural edition had 10 events while there were 16 events at the 2016 edition. The 2018 edition witnessed 28 events taking place. The IWF (International Weightlifting Federation) gave its approval for this event as a silver category qualification event for the Olympics.

It was a great day for Indian weightlifters as well as Mirabai Chanu claimed gold at the Qatar International Cup, while Jeremy Lalrinnunga won the silver medal with a total lift of 306kg (140kg in snatch and 166kg in clean and jerk) in the men’s 67kg category.

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Earlier, former world champion weightlifter Saikhom Mirabai Chanu notched up the women’s 49kg category gold medal to open India’s account at the 6th Qatar International Cup on Friday.