Tang Lingsheng

Tang Lingsheng
Personal information
Surname:	Tang Lingsheng
Nationality:	People's Republic of China
Date of birth:	January 10, 1971
Place of birth:	Lingui
Size:	160 cm
Medal table

Tang Lingsheng ( 唐靈生  /  唐灵生 , Táng Língshēng , born January 10, 1971 in Lingui , China ) is a former Chinese weightlifter and Olympic champion.

Athletic career

Tang began lifting weights at the age of 12 and began to exercise systematically in 1987. Internationally, he made his first appearance at the 1990 World Junior Championship in Sarajevo . Here he was able to take fifth place with 245.0 kg (112.5 / 132.5 kg) in the bantam weight up to 59 kg. The first placed Ivan Ivanov achieved 260.0 kg.

His first appearance in the senior national team was at the 1993 World Cup in Melbourne , where he won bronze with 130.0 kg in snatch and 162.5 kg in jerk, as well as in a duel with 292.5 kg in the new class could gain up to 59 kg. The winner was Nikolaj Peschalow with 305.0 kg ahead of Hafiz Suleymanoglu with 295.0 kg. In 1994 he won silver in his class at the Asian Games, and at the World Championships in Istanbul he finished sixth with 285.0 kg (125.0 / 160.0 kg).

At the 1995 World Cup in their own country, Tang could not prevail in the duel due to the strong field of participants. With a performance of 292.5 kg (125.0 / 167.5 kg) he was fifth in the duel, but was able to win gold in the jerk. The winner was the Greek Leonidas Sabanis with 302.5 kg.

After his relatively poor performance in snatching often prevented a better placement in the previous years, Tang improved significantly in this discipline at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta . If he failed twice more at 130.0 kg in 1995 in Guangzhou, this load was now his initial attempt. The 25-year-old Tang was able to do all three attempts at snatching 130.0 kg, 135.0 kg and 137.5 kg, as well as all Make a valid pushing experiment with 162.5 kg, 167.5 kg and 170.0 kg. Only in the last shock attempt did he secure the gold medal with a duel of 307.5 kg, ahead of Sabanis with 305.0 kg and Peschalow with 302.5 kg. After the first conversion of the weight classes in 1993 and the associated cancellation of all existing world records , this duel also meant a new world record for bantam weights up to 59 kg.

Others

• Tang was a torchbearer at the 2008 Olympic Games in China.

Personal best

• Snatch: 137.5 kg in the 59 kg class at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta
• Bump: 170.0 kg in the 59 kg class at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta
• Combat: 307.5 kg in the class up to 59 kg at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tang Lingsheng http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2007-07/29/content_6003676.htm (accessed August 11, 2010)
2. ↑ The first torchbearer in Guilin leg runs with the torch http://olympicsportbeijing.blogspot.com/2008/06/first-torchbearer-in-guilin-leg-runs.html  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on August 11, 2010)  

Web links

• Profile of Tang Lingsheng in the lift-up project at chidlovski.net (English)
• Tang Lingsheng at the Institute for Applied Training Science
• Tang Lingsheng in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )