World Championships 2005 Report 

World Championships 2005: Report and pictures

The 2005 World championships were for the first time organized in an Arab country. These 74th Men's  and 17th women's championships took place from  8th till 17th of November in Doha, the capital of Qatar.

Qatar is a peninsula located in the gulf region of around 11500 square kilometers with 700.000 inhabitants, half of them living in Doha! 
Thanks to oil and gas production Qatar is one of the richest countries in the world. The typical white "Arabic style"   buildings are rising everywhere around Doha and expensive heavy engine cars are widely spread.

	A mosque.
	Tall white buildings rising everywhere..
	My father  and coach (already not tiny :-) next to a huge Hummer car.

Qatar has a moderate desert climate with summer temperatures rising up to 45 °C and at the time of the championships day temperatures were around 30 degrees.  Inside however, it sometimes felt very chilly due to the air-conditioning.   

It's an Islamitic country and most of the people  wear the traditional dress, men  a long, white dress and a head covering, gutra,  secured with four black, tasseled cords. Women wear a long black dress (must be very warm in the burning sun), "abayah", and some women choose to wear a veil. 

As a tourist you better cover up your upper legs, and upper body to the shoulders if you don't want to attract the somewhat disapproving looks of the locals.

Alcohol is only available in international hotels and the price of a pint (beer) was around 5 euro.

In terms of the number of athletes and suspense of the competitions these championships were quite successful.. 
About 100 women and 200 men from more than 70 countries were competing.
The trend of the last years with close level differences continued thus giving exciting fights between the competitors, maybe even enforced by the 1 kg progression.
31 new world records were broken, especially in the female field . 
Full results can be found on IWF website.

This was my 4th senior world championship and my 201st competition ever.  
For the first time I started in the A-group and those who watched Eurosport TV could follow my lifts.
I was in a good shape and knew a result around my national record of 278 kg wasn't impossible. In the European championship I totaled 275 so I originally I aimed for 276 total in the second attempts. After the b-group finished I adapted my plans cause it was clear that I had a 10th place for sure so we went for very light start attempts of 118 kg snatch and 145 kg clean and jerk. The best b-group result was 272 kg so that was the next goal so 
 in the second attempts I lifted easily 123 kg snatch and 149 kg clean and jerk.    
When the Cuban lifter missed three times I already knew I placed 7th in the snatch and 8th place in total was in view. In the third snatch I went for 126 kg which would have given me 5th place. Unfortunately I didn't fully extend in the pull and missed the otherwise not too heavy 126 kg.  
for the last clean and jerk I asked for 153 kg which would have given me 276 kg total. The clean never felt easier and already convinced that I would succeed, I suddenly lost my balance in coming out of the squat. To my own   
surprise I missed the clean stupidly and didn't have the chance to show that I was stronger than at the European championships. 

However, my  total of 272 kg (61.02 kg, 396 Sinclair) and 8th place in total was more than satisfying. 
By reaching this 8th place I also fulfilled the requirements to be an Olympic A athlete. 
Since more than 25 years (back to the time that Serge Reding got a silver medal) no other Belgian did better! 

In terms of organization these championships suffered of a lot of start-up problems, to the annoyment of many delegations.  It seemed they started to organized things way to late and didn't ask enough advise. 
By putting the delegations in 9 different hotels the local organisation made it of course very difficult for themselves. 
When paying 200 dollars entree fee pro person you really expect to have transport when needed but the first three days there was no transport to the training&competition hall, nor to the accreditation,...so traveling by taxi on own expenses was common. The next days there were busses from time to time but no one knew when. Only the 12th of November a bus schedule was put in place. 

As there were no weighing scales available in the hotels it made the situation very hard for those who had to lose weight. Above this not all hotels had a sauna. Some delegations even hired a car and paid for there athletes to go to the sauna to cope with these problems. 

The training hall was quite peculiar, cause they had put a big white tent, with carpets and acclimatization, next to the competition hall. 

	The tent , serving as the training hall next to the modern competition hall.
	Inside the training tent ...
	... sometimes a bit crowed, however cosy and well equipped with about 25 platforms.

The competition hall was modern and nice, but the audience was mainly seated at the side which didn't give the best view for the ones who couldn't sit close. 
The warm-up room was very small with only half a meter between the 3m² platform and the facing wall. 
It didn't pose any problems to me personally cause I'm used to train in small rooms but some lifters complained about it. It was quite a distance between the warm-up, the place to follow the change of weights and the competion platform, so I was very happy that my father got the help of the French coaches. Thanks! 

	Miyake Hirome, who won the bronze medal clean and jerk with 110 kg in the lightest class of -48 kg.  She is coached by her father Miyake , who was one of the best lifters ever.
	And the bronze medal winner in the females heaviest class +75 kg (142kg), Sheryl Haworth (USA)

Part of the female Japanese team.

Unfortunately, I couldn't stay long after my competition so I wasn't able to take as many pics as usual. It's a pitty I can't show you pictures of some strong guys but my friend Keith, a weightlifting fan and amateur photographer again took loads of splendid actions pictures and in the near future you will probably find the pics on his web page on http://www.ripsteel.org.uk .