Meanwhile, at the Greco Roman wrestling Ghasem Rezaie won gold in the 96 kg class defeating his Russian opponent 3-0 in the final.Rezaie had earlier beaten opponents from Turkey, Armenia and Cuba.
And in a major breakthrough in athletics, Iran’s Ehsan Hadadi won silver in this discuss. Hadadi was leading going into the penultimate round after throwing 68.18m, but was eventually beaten by Germany’s Robert Harting by a mere 9cm.
But it was the battle for the crown of the Olympic’s strongest man which was the main talking point in London.
Weightlifting isn’t a sport for the fainthearted as the reigning Olympic champion from Germany found out.
But 22 year old Salimi made his intentions clear by lifting an incredible 208 KGs in the snatch.
He then lifted 247 KG in the clean and jerk to annihilate the field with a total score of 455 KG.
Salimi’s nearest competitor was Anoushirvani who managed to lift a total of 449 KGs.
Afterwards Salimi thanked all the Iranian fans in the stadium and all those back at home who were praying for him to win.
Meanwhile, Salimi’s victory was celebrated raucously by the large number of Iranian fans who came to London’s Excel centre.
This has already been a very successful Olympics for Iran and they’ve already surpassed their medal tally from the previous Olympics in Beijing. And Iran will hope for yet more medals before the curtain falls on London 2012.
press tv/281