The first international tournament on weightlifting for the Cup of the President of Russia took place in Belgorod on December 17-18. The tournament has become the first international competition held in Russia after the «Friendship Cup» in 1991.
In the competitions the strongest athletes of the World from Belarus, Hungary, Iran, Spain, China, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan took part.
The representatives of Russian President Administration, the President of the International Weightlifting Federation, member of IOC T. Ayan, the representatives of regional administration, Russian Ministry of Sports and Tourism, the sport society of the region, Olympic champions: S.Horkina, L.Zhabotinsky, A. Chemerkin, A.Petrov, D.Rigert, N.Kolesnikov, M. Kirzhinov, V.Tregubov, P.Kuznetsov, B.Silitsky, D. Berestov, I.Arsamakov were present at the event among the honoured guests.
Pursuant to the provisions of Russian President Cup organization, five sets of medals in fiveweight categories were competed for, and they were all won by Russian athletes in whose honourthe national anthem of Russia was played five times. Four world records in grown-up categories andone in junior category were set by our athletes. The competition has drawn the great interestamong athletes and supporters.