European Weightlifting Championships
Nina Sterckx (21) was unable to win a new medal at the European Weightlifting Championships after her silver last year. Our compatriot was on course for a medal after the pulling part, but failed three times during the push.
Sterckx started well in Bulgaria by reaching 101 kg in the pull (snatch), but then her three attempts in the clean & jerk were invalid. The Ukrainian Kamila Konotop won with 230 kg, ahead of the French Dora Tchakounté (215 kg) and the Finnish Saara Retulainen (214 kg). In the B group, Nathalie Lebbe finished with 168 kg (75 + 93 kg), good for seventeenth place.
In April last year, Sterckx won a silver medal at the European Championships in the category up to 59 kg in the Armenian capital Yerevan. Then she reached a total of 209 kg. In September she finished in ninth place in the same category at the World Championships in Riyadh with a total of 220 kg, improving her Belgian record. She previously also won European Championship bronze twice in the minus 55 kg (2021 and 2021).
In the summer of 2021, Sterckx came fifth at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, in the category up to 49 kg. The reduction in the number of weight categories (from 14 to 10) at the Games in Paris forces Sterckx to make a choice between the categories up to 49 kg and up to 59 kg. The class up to 55 kg is non-Olympic. She is seventh (-49 kg) and eleventh (-59 kg) in the Olympic qualifying rankings. After this European Championship, the 21-year-old from Ghent will decide on her Olympic weight class.
The top ten of the Olympic rankings (with a maximum of three per country in the five categories per gender) qualify for Paris. Sofia is the penultimate qualifier for the Games, the last being in early April in Thailand.
On Tuesday, Annelien Vandenabeele finished ninth in the 55 kg class.
