Team Iran’s Alireza Yousefi underwent surgery for multiple injuries to his leg and is predicted to miss the upcoming Asian Championships.
Team Iran’s latest in a long line of super-heavyweight powerhouses is out of commission — for now. According to reporting by the Tehran Times and confirmed by the Iranian Weightlifting Federation, on Jan. 27, 2025, super-heavyweight Alireza Yousefi underwent surgery for multiple injuries to his right leg .
Remind Me: Yousefi stunned at the 2024 World Weightlifting Championships with his gold medal-winning 262-kilogram clean & jerk, a weight no athlete in a decade, save for Georgia’s all-time great Lasha Talakhadze, had managed.
Alireza Yousefi reportedly suffered injuries to both his meniscus and a ligament in his ankle. Whether these injuries occurred after his performance at Worlds or had plagued Yousefi for some time is unclear.
Here’s what we know, and what it means for the super-heavyweight division in what increasingly looks like a post-Talakhadze climate.
Alireza Yousefi: Highs and Lows
If you haven’t heard of Alireza Yousefi before, let’s get you up to speed: Yousefi, 21, made his International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) debut in 2018 with a win at the Asian Youth Championships.
A strong start for any international career, but it wouldn’t be until the tail end of 2024 that Yousefi would get his due by winning the clean & jerk gold medal at Worlds — a prize reserved exclusively for Talakhadze since 2017. Talakhadze abstained from Worlds in Manama, Bahrain, after claiming his third consecutive Olympic gold medal just four months prior.
- Cheat Sheet: Talakhadze began his decade-plus international win streak at the 2015 World Weightlifting Championships, but he placed second in the clean & jerk behind Estonia’s Mart Seim by a single kilogram; 248 to 247.
Shortly after Worlds, a video hit social media of Alireza Yousefi performing what is believed to be the heaviest split jerk ever recorded , a mammoth 275 kilograms, or 606.2 pounds.
Between bagging his first Senior World medals and eclipsing Talakhadze, whose best known jerk in training stands at 270 kilograms, it looked like Yousefi was poised to contend for the super-heavyweight throne as Talakhadze eyed a career pivot to politics .
Will Alireza Yousefi Recover?
Weightlifting House
Despite their reputation among laypeople, strength sports like weightlifting aren’t inherently dangerous. While aches and pains come with the territory, serious injuries are much rarer, ( 1 ) and many athletes who require surgery often return to form within months rather than years.
That said, reporting indicates Alireza Yousefi will miss out on the upcoming 2025 Asian Weightlifting Championships , which take place in Jiangshan, China, in May.
Team Iran , which historically excels in the Men’s super-heavyweight division, will likely turn to Yousefi’s teammate and 2024 World Championships silver medalist Ali Davoudi to maintain a podium presence at Asians this year.
Parallels: In March 2023, Bulgarian phenomenon Karlos Nasar suffered a grievous injury to his Achilles tendon which required surgery, sidelining him from competition throughout the summer. By September, Nasar was back in fighting form. Come December, he won the IWF Grand Prix II.
Alireza Yousefi may be down, but he’s hardly out. A six-month timeline puts Yousefi on a collision course with the 6th Islamic Solidarity Games, which run from Aug. 6 to 15 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Between his rapid rise in the Men’s super-heavyweight category and an optimistic post-surgery prognosis, Yousefi should be back on the platform, and potentially inking a new clean & jerk world record, before long.
