Hidilyn Diaz takes on Hsing-Chun Kuo at the continental championships in Jinju, Republic of Korea from 3-13 May with fellow Olympic champions Li Fabin and Fares El-Bakh also in the Paris 2024 qualification event.
After an exciting European Weightlifting Championships, attention switches to Asia where the continent's top lifters will converge at the Jinju Arena to compete in 10 weight classes for men and women.
Besides the continental medals, the event is part of the Olympic qualifying process for Paris 2024.
To be eligible to participate at the next Summer Games, athletes must participate in a minimum of three major competitions (in addition to fulfilling other prerequisites) with the Asian Weightlifting Championships one of those.
These championships will also give the athletes a good chance to test themselves ahead of September’s Asian Games.
The Asian Weightlifting Championships will take place in Jinju, Republic of Korea from 3-13 May 2023, and you can watch the action live on Olympics.com via Olympic Channel.
More than 260 weightlifters from 40 nations will take part in the championships including world and Olympic champions. Among the names to keep an eye on are:
China's Olympic 61kg gold medallist is again set to dazzle at the Asian event. The 30-year-old will be looking to pick up from where he left off in 2022 when he lifted a new clean and jerk world record to regain his world title in Bogota.
Her long unbeaten run may have ended at last December’s World Championships, but Hsing-Chun Kuo remains the favourite in Asia in the 59kg class despite the presence of a new and interesting rival. The Rio 2016 bronze medallist won gold in Tokyo but lost out to home favourite Yenny Alvarez in Colombia with another Olympic champion, Canada's Maude Charron, taking bronze.
Kuo's biggest challenge will surely come from Hidilyn Diaz who made history at Tokyo 2020 by winning the Philippines' first Olympic gold medal at 55kg. With that weight class dropped from the programme for Paris 2024, Diaz has moved up to 59kg. She has opted not to defend her title at the Southeast Asian Games and instead compete in Korea with the hope of collecting early points towards qualification for Paris. She’s been in training at the Waseda University in Japan for the Continental championships.
Fares El-Bakh, also known as Meso Hassouna, has also had to bulk up with his weight class discarded ahead of Paris. The 96kg Tokyo 2020 hero and Qatar's first Olympic champion - winning gold one day before high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim - won the 102kg Asian title last October and will once again do battle with world silver medallist Reza Dehdar from the Islamic Republic of Iran.