2026 Junior World Weightlifting Championships Results

The best young weightlifters in the world are Ismailia, Egypt.

The 2026 Junior World Weightlifting Championships host 272 Junior weightlifters—but there are only 48 gold medals to go around between May 2 - 8.

Start Book | Stream | 2025 Results

Youth and Junior international events give us a glimpse into the next generation of weightlifting talent. Here are some of the competitors we're paying attention to in Ismailia.

Zeng Zailian (48, CHN)

Team China has no shortage of successful lightweight women. Zeng has never competed internationally, but leads the W48s with a 185 entry—a total that would have won the W49s last year.

K Duong (60, VIE)

K has quietly dominated the Youth & Junior circuits for the last 4 years, placing 1st at 7/8 internationals, with the lone exception of last year's Junior Worlds. K added 20KG to his total the first time he jumped from 55KG to 60KG.

Women's 53KG

There's a 15KG spread between the lowest and highest entrants in this category. Most athletes have clustered between 190KG and 200KG, indicating a must-watch session.

Lin Jingwei (69, CHN)

The 71KG Youth World Champion from last year has dropped to 69 and leads the category with a 235KG entry total. Last year, Lin, 18, did 231KG at Youths for her international debut.

Albert Ian Delos Santos (71, PHI)

The Junior World Record holder in the clean & jerk (186KG@71) has pushed his total from 259KG to 322KG over the last three years. 328KG is the world standard. Albert needs up to 190KG in the clean & jerk to get there if he can't break 140KG in the snatch. At his last three events, he's snatched 136, 137, and 138KG.

Alikhan Askerbay (88, KAZ)

Alikhan, 17, may be Kazakhstan's next big thing—if he wins here. He's got four international events under his belt; three wins and one bronze. He's also moved all the way up from 71KG to 88KG for this event.

Women's 77KG

This session is stacked. Seine Stowers (SAM), fresh off her home-turf performance at the Universal Cup; Janette Ylisoini (FIN), newly crowned European Champion; Varvara Kuzminova (RUS), who placed second to Janette with a 9KG improvement in less than a year; Anna Amroyan (ARM), who bombed in the 77s at Europeans but beat both Ylisoini and Kuzminova in the clean & jerk.

Wang Guizhou (110, CHN)

Team China hasn't put up a Junior heavyweight male in at least 10 years, but Wang, 19, leads the board with a 391KG entry. This will be his IWF debut. Wang has a few lifts circulating online; a 160KG snatch from 2024 and a 215KG in the clean & push jerk from last year. 

Hu Wenxun (+86, CHN)

Hu is 15 years old. She's entered with 280KG. The winning total in the Junior Women's supers last year was 245KG. Hu has one IWF event, last October, under her belt—she made 267KG three days after her 15th birthday. 267KG would have put her 5th at Worlds '25; 280KG is a silver medal there.