Highlights & Lowlights From the World Weightlifting Championships

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There’s a lot happening at the 2025 World Weightlifting Championships. Our event hub page puts almost all of it in one place.

But not everything happens on the platform. Here are some of the noteworthy moments, good and bad, from our last eight days in Forde.

The five-member jury panel at the competition venue are rapidly becoming infamous for their intervention in what most spectators would consider good lifts.

How it started: The jury signaled their strictness on the first day of competition when they invalidated Ri Song Gum’s (W49, PRK) second snatch as a press-out, which had initially received three white lights. Since then, they’ve intervened in nearly every Group A event.

Victims of the jury’s stern judgement on otherwise passable lifts have included:

• Lawal Rafiatu (NGR)

• Kim Il-Gyong (PRK)

• Son Hyeonho (KOR)

• "Abdo" Younes (EGY)

• Yekta Jamali (WRT)

• Laura Amaro (BRA)

Among others. 

While the jury seem to have eased up slightly in the final days of the event, the controversy bolsters a growing debate within weightlifting about the merits and subjectivity of the press-out rule.

24-year-old female weightlifter Ghofrane Belkhir used the long travel from Tunisia, in northern Africa, to Norway, to escape the supervision of Tunisian weightlifting officials.

Several days after this event was reported in Tunisian news, Ghofrane, a Youth Olympics gold medalist, posted herself in Paris on social media.

What’s happening: Ghofrane is the fourth Tunisian woman this year to use foreign weightlifting competitions as a means of escaping oppression at home. Three Junior competitors disappeared during the 2025 Youth & Junior World Championships in Spain this summer.

According to Amnesty International, nearly half of Tunisian women report suffering domestic violence. In 2022, Human Rights Watch reported categorical failures by the Tunisian government to uphold protective laws passed for the benefit of women.

Ghofrane appears to be okay. Her highest weightlifting accolades include gold in the W55 at Worlds in 2021, and gold at 58 in the 2018 Youth Olympic Games.

Karlos Nasar has received a royal treatment since he touched down in Forde on the 4th of October. The Paris Olympic Champion has been provided with a vehicle and chauffeur by local organizers, complete with the Forde World Champs branding.

Nasar is the most popular athlete across all sports in Bulgaria, and his international prestige seems to be growing as well.

For a closer look at Karlos’ experience in Forde so far, check out episode six of our UNLOCKED series:

Sebastian Paez (71, COL) suffered a severe elbow injury on his opening snatch attempt of 149 kilograms on day four of Worlds. It appeared that he’d fainted on stage from the pain.

From the athlete: “I was conscious the whole time … I’m still processing this whole situation … I trust in God and know this isn’t the end.”

Paez’ injury is severe, but elbow breaks do not necessarily mean the end of a weightlifting career.

• Andranik Karapetyan (ARM) broke his elbow during Rio 2016. He’s won international medals since, and continues to compete today.
• Tian Tao (CHN) also suffered a serious elbow injury early in his career, in 2012. While famously inconsistent on the platform, Tian still managed to win plenty of international medals and advance world records.

We don’t expect we’ve seen the last of Sebastian.

There’s a rumor the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) may, again, reorganize its weight categories just a few months after validating the classes we’re seeing at the World Championships this year.

What’s happening: In a surprising move, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) granted the IWF one additional weight class event slot in LA2028.

The Games will now host six events per gender, instead of five. This has prompted speculation that the IWF may reshuffle things, particularly on the Men’s side, to accommodate.

The issue:Including 6 out of 8 classes highlights unfortunate gaps between weight classes, such as between the 94 and 110-kilogram divisions.

While he’s not present in Forde, we have learned that Iranian superheavy and clean & jerk specialist Alireza Yousefi is on the road to recovery after undergoing knee surgery earlier this year.

What we’re hearing: Alireza is back in the gym and has recovered his clean & jerk to around 210KG. We don’t know yet if he’ll be at the Asian Champs next year.

Yousefi won Worlds last December with 262KG in the clean & jerk—9KG above the next athlete—but finished with bronze overall.

Chris Murray (GBR) intentionally bombed out at the World Champs this year. Murray, who is nursing a shoulder injury, deadlifted just 30KG during the 79D session in order to fulfill a qualification requirement for next year’s Commonwealth Games.

From the athlete: “I was pretty embarrassed,” said Murray. “I’m not going to say what I think about the rule, but you can probably guess.”

• In the past, injured athletes could turn up to qualification events, weigh in, and then withdraw without having to perform. But the IWF reportedly intends to follow the Commonwealth Weightlifting Federation (CWF), adjusting their procedures to close this loophole in the future.

Murray says he hopes to take the platform for real at next spring’s European Championships in Batumi, Georgia.