Greatest Ever: Lasha Talakhadze Wins Weightlifting Gold at 2024 Olympics

During the Men’s +102KG weightlifting event at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Aug. 10, Lasha Talakhadze of Georgia claimed the gold medal. With this achievement, Talakhadze cemented himself as perhaps the greatest weightlifter to ever step on the platform.

Talakhadze scored his third straight Olympic gold in Paris — his first came in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, his second five years later in Tokyo. Talakhadze astounded the imaginations of the spectators in the South Paris Arena, scoring the following lifts:

2024 Olympics Results | Lasha Talakhadze, +102KG

Snatch: 210, 215, 220x
Clean & Jerk: 247, 255
Total: 470

Talakhadze’s snatch miss at 220 was his first-ever unsuccessful lift at an Olympic Games event. He declined his final clean & jerk attempt.

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Talakhadze holds every world record in the men’s super-heavyweight category and has not lost a weightlifting contest in over a decade. The Georgian giant’s Paris medal caps off a truly illustrious (and impeccable) career in weightlifting

Olympic Games wins: 3 (2016 – 2024)
World Championships wins: 7 (2015 – 2023)*
European Championships wins: 7 (2016 – 2023)*

Editor’s Note: The World Weightlifting Championships were not held in the Olympic year of 2016, or in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which also postponed the European Weightlifting Championships in ’20 as well.

Whether Talakhadze will retire with an unblemished record is unclear. On Jul. 30, 2024, Georgian Weightlifting Federation President and former weightlifter Kahki Kakhiashvili urged Talakhadze to continue to the next Games in Los Angeles in 2028:

“Should we all be blessed with Lasha’s fourth Olympic gold medal, he would definitely get the title of all-time best,” Kakhiashvili said. “It is my dream for him.”

2024 Olympics Results | Lasha Talakhadze, +102KG

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