Weightlifters Bring Blood and Fury to the Games

Swifter, higher, stronger. A lot of attention is paid to the first two, but not so much to the last. Just as the 100m epitomizes the first, the men's +105kg weightlifting does the last. The strongest men lifting the heaviest weights: this should one of the showpiece events of the Games. It's not been helped by the doping culture, but in Beijing not a single weightlifter has been caught cheating. Partly this is because a lot of suspect lifters weren't allowed to come at all. Among others, the entire Bulgarian squad were barred from attending.

The discipline also lost lustre when Iran's double Olympic champion, Hossein Rezazadeh, retired from the sport. He injured his knee in a car crash last year and was since been advised by doctors "not to do any heavy or stressful activity", which is obviously a bit of a problem in this line of work. Rezazadeh was one of the few stars able to take the sport away from the fringe into the main spotlight.

Tonight, though, the Beijing University of Astronautics has been invaded by Germans. Or at least the gymnasium has. There must have been 1,000 of them. Furious, red-faced, screaming weightlifting fans, they were slightly terrifying.

They certainly out-shouted the few Latvians and Russians. With Rezazadeh away, each nation was hoping they had the the strongest man at the Olympics. The cast list made interesting reading.

First up was the Russian, Evgeny Chigishev. Perhaps unsurprisingly Chigishev is a dead ringer for Dolph Lundgren, only 20 stone. He has a boxer's physique, his torso pyramiding down from shoulders to waist. On New Year's Eve in 2001, Chigishev, from Novokuznetsk in central Siberia, was repeatedly stabbed in his right arm and back by a group of muggers who then killed the young weightlifter he was out walking with. It took him a year to recuperate.

The Latvian, Viktors Scerbatihs, is the fattest of the three at 22 stone. He is also member of parliament for the Farmers' Union Party, a combination he says is "almost impossible". Softly spoken, he has a neat line in gnomic phrases that make him sound both wise and nonsensical. "The weak lifter doesn't lose, the strong lifter does," is a particular favorite.

Finally there is Matthias Steiner, the man who has brought the Germans out in such force. Steiner, bearded and stocky, is just 25. He competed for Austria at Athens in 2004. Afterwards he fell out with the Austrian Federation, moved to Saxony and married a girl named Susann from Zwickau, taking up German citizenship. Last year Susann was killed in a car crash.

Their three-way showdown would come in two halves: the snatch and the clean-and-jerk, with the heaviest weights from each being combined to give an overall score.

The snatch contest felt a little devoid of drama, and for once the organizers have misjudged their half-time show, treating us to the hellish sight of the Games mascots dancing to Cotton Eye Joe. It was a little underwhelming so far, but that soon changed.

With the weight being constantly increased, the lifters and their coaches have to decide how to best use their three clean-and-jerk attempts. Go too early, and they might leave space for someone else to do better. Go it too late and the barbell may be too heavy for them to register a result at all. It's a game of calculating the risks as well as straining the muscles.

Chigishev finished first, ending with 250kg. It gave him the lead over Steiner and Scerbatihs. He was confident that it would be enough.

It left his two rivals with no choice but to attempt mammoth final lifts. The Latvian asked for 257 kilos to be put on the bar, the scurrying attendants doing his bidding.

Silence. The lifter bends forward, eyeing the weight in contemplative silence. He snaps to attention and the barbell pops up to his chest. A cheer, another pause, then the jerk. Almost there, his right arm kinks at the last moment and the barbell crashes to the mat, rattling the wooden desks and plastic chairs in the auditorium. Scerbatihs trudged off, dejected.

Out comes Steiner. The Germans in the crowd bellowing his name. He needs no extra motivation. Pumped all night long, he's by far the most vocal of the competitors. He screams and slaps his thighs twice. He too eyes the barbell, now set at 258 kilos. The clean, the jerk, and it is up. He's won. His scream seems to drown out those of his 1,000 fans.

The emotion Steiner displayed at that point will surely make the highlights montages. Words like beserk and volcanic couldn't possibly do it justice. He fell to the mat and pounded the floor, leapt up to his feet and bear-hugged his coach, jumped up and down in the air like a child, shouting and roaring. Then he ran forward, tore off his vest and clawed at the German badge on his t-shirt, screaming at the top of his voice for a minute and more.

For the medal ceremony Steiner carried a photo of his wife onto the podium. He kissed it and thrust it into the air. This man had a stimulant far stronger than any drug.