Lasha is Actually Back! But Can He Win | WLHOUSE News Show

Lasha Talakadze is actually back, Rahmat decides to go again against Rizky and Team Iran have a test event with massive results. All of that and more on this week's episode of the Weighlifting House News Show. All right we're gonna have to head straight into it with Lasha Talakadze's return but first very quickly I just got done recording a Q&A podcast, questions sent in from you wonderful lot on my Instagram. A lot of the questions were about upcoming drops and launches. We have our first core launch coming in a couple of weeks, maybe even more like one week by the time this is up. Stay tuned for that. Okay so there was this rumour back in, was it February, that Lasha would be returning. I spoke to Dr Georgi, Lasha's sort of physio and he said yes, probably not for Europeans but hopefully for Worlds and then Lasha kind of went dark on us. I mean I actually saw him at Europeans and he didn't really look like he'd been training much. We'd seen a few lifts here and there so I was starting to get a little bit concerned and then last week we saw a video. 160 kilos in the snatch, 190 kilos in the clean and jerk for a couple of singles on each. That is exactly 71% for both lifts. I assume it's just a case of it's 70% right now and you know what are they going to do 168, 187, they're just not going to do that. So 160, 190 for him and you know what I think it looks good. We did just discuss whether we think it's actually possible for him to get back to and win this World Championships. With the way that the qualifying period is going to work, he's almost certainly going to have to come to this World Championships but being a three-time Olympic champion in the hunt for something historic which is a fourth Olympic gold, something no other weightlifter has ever done, I think he's going to have to attack this qualification cycle differently. He doesn't need to snatch 220 now, he does need to snatch 220 in LA. So I think he's going to have to accept that his undefeated since 2015 streak will have to come to an end. I'm not convinced he's going to be able to win in Ningbo, China. He might, you know, it's tough to bet against arguably the GOAT but he doesn't need to here. I assume he'd podium probably, you know, he's going to be around that 210, 245 range possibly but that won't be enough to win it. We've got a lot of big hitters right now but over the quad he'll basically have two years, a little under, a year and three quarters to do it. You know, he could become the four-time. It's an amazing period of time to be a weightlifting fan. Moving on, Rahmat Erwin Abdullah. I mean, one of my favourite weightlifters, so much so that we did a collab with him, you know, and a huge favourite for everyone, one of the best clean and jerks in the world. After his devastating sort of loss at the World Cup in 2024 and he lost out to Rizky, it was then decided by the Indonesian Olympic Federation that they would split those two weightlifters out into two separate categories for the common quad so they didn't miss on the opportunity for more Olympic medals. You know, last time they had two people who could have both won and only one could go and from what I had learned from Team Indonesia, Rahmat was gonna have to go 85 because Rizky got first pick as Olympic champion and he chose 75. I just saw footage of Rahmat competing at a local competition. He snatched 155 kilos, looks good. I mean, that's not far off his best, you know, the most we really ever see is 160 and then 200 and again we've seen him do more. He's made 205, you know, he is a phenomenal clean and jerker but he made it look very easy and I commented and I said, how much is Rahmat weighing here, you know, is he over 80 yet? He was a 75 so we reached out, we tried to find out what's going on. It's like that meme from, I'm not supposed to swear, you know that I'm not leaving meme, Wolf of Wall Street, it's like that. He said I'm not leaving, he's coming back to 75, he's gonna go up against Rizky, we're gonna have the battle again for the next quad, throw in Riwanju, throw in Olivares, throw in Insa, unbelievable weightlifters here, Yamamoto, Gensh, Ri Chongsong, the 75s is going to be just explosive. Okay, now on to Akbar Jarive, who we spoke about last week as well. We've had some pretty big lifts, the first of which is a 245 kilo clean and jerk attempt. Now this is a year old, this was pre-Norway where we saw him hit the 196 snatch world record and then the 245 pull, he pulled it and didn't go under it, but he fancied it, he felt like he wanted to give it a go, and this is why, because he was, he knew he was able to clean it, he hadn't been able to jerk it after a clean, he jerked more from the rack, but it's an absolutely massive lift, very few heavyweights have ever cleaned a jerk 245. Ilya's done it, Vyacheslav Khlokov has done it, Botev's done it, Zakharevich has done it, but not many people have ever done it, he wanted to give it a go and he's close. Even rarer are the number of heavyweights, whether that's at 105, 110 or 109 or 108, who have ever made lifts with greens in both the snatch and clean and jerk at the same time, so that would be 195-245. Zakharevich would have done it, I don't know if anyone else has done it, I need to look into that, if any of you are nerdy out there and want to look into it for me, comment down below, let me know if anyone else has done it, but if Gerov does it, that would be kind of crazy. He also hit a 190, I think it was, kilo push press for a double, which again is in direct response to Liu Honghua's 195 single, he hit a 210 double in the jerk with the re-rack and then a 260 kilo front squat double. I really was impressed by that front squat, there's no way Liu's making 260 looks like that. Last week we saw Colby, who's got some of the strongest legs in the world, hit 275 for a single, that first rep at 260 goes to show that Akbar is not just the best technician, he is freakishly strong. When you meet him in person, which I'm sure most of you haven't done, but I've been fortunate enough to do a lot of times, if you shake his hand, his hand is colossal. The thing that always takes me back is his forearms are like, the muscle belly is huge on him, he's way bigger in person, way more muscular in person than you realise and yeah, 260 moving fast. Speaking of front squats, Yangjai, the South Korean super just hit a 270 kilo front squat also, worth a mention on the news show. Over in Latvia, Rebecca Ibrahima, formerly Kohar, just had a competition, she went 92, 108, that's 200 kilo total, returning back to close to her, not her best form, but her, when was it, 2025 Europeans, I think she made something like 215-ish in the clean and jerk, probably mid to high 90s in the snatch, so she's getting back there, by the time she goes to worlds where presumably she'll be a 61, that's a new women's weight class, the dominant figures in that class by the way, we're looking at Ri Suk, I'm hoping we're looking at the return of Olympic champion Loshi Fang, one of my absolute favourites, but if we can see Rebecca get back, pushing up to 100, pushing up 115 to 120, that'll be solid, her best ever lifts, I can't believe how long ago they were, back in 2018, I guess it was Ashgabat, she snatched 103 and she clean and jerked 124, very good lifts, but nice to see her back in good shape. Then we have Chen Pozhen, who I mentioned last week because he hang snatched 200 kilos, this week again for the second time I think now that we've seen it, a 230 kilo clean and jerk, that's absolutely massive, I mean this guy is super strong, what have we seen, we've seen Ali Reza Naziri's done like 232, we've seen Lu Hanhua clean 239, we've seen Akbar with the 232 and previous years back in 2021 he did 238, Ruslan's done it, but I mean there's not many guys who can hit 230 and I know what Chen Pozhen is like, you know he's going to do 195, 230 in training and then in competition it's going to be 187, 216, I know what he's like, but still 230 at 110, it's hard to ignore that lift. Over in Venezuela, one of the guys who's going to be able to actually push Carlos I think, Kedemar Vainia with a staggering lift, 231 kilos in the jerk off blocks, now the world record, is it 223 or is that ridiculous, 222, one second, it's 222 kilos in the 94s right now, hold up, when are we going to get the new world standard because the weight classes are changing again, obviously 94s go to 95, the 110s remains, will we keep those world records, I don't know, the 88s drop to 85, what's going to happen there, by the way the 88 kilo world record snatch is the same as the 94 kilo world record snatch, Abdo Younes 182, weighing, what was he, 84, unbelievable, 83, 231 from Kedemar, it's nine kilos over the current world record clean and jerk in that category, phenomenal stuff, phenomenal stuff. Over to the USA now, we have the one and only Olivia Reeves, two-time world champion, Olympic champion, 160 kilo clean, is this recent? I should actually message her and ask, it's a great lift but, you know, we'd only just seen her doing, what did she post the other day, something like 113, 137 and, you know, she pulled out of nationals and I kind of assumed, okay, motivation's maybe a bit low, you've had a big gap between competitions, you're gonna have to build up for worlds, you didn't have the best performance at Pan Ams and then suddenly 160 clean from a dead stop as well in the clean, she didn't get the bounce but she's got, wow, does she have the most impressive leg strength in that category? Certainly, so yeah, mind-blowing stuff there. Then we have from Egypt, Sarah Sameer, multiple-time world champion, she's phenomenal, we showed her last week with the 126 block snatch, she had a not so great battle with Olivia at last worlds, we thought it was going to be better than it was but Olivia walked away with it but she just hit a 152 kilo clean and jerk, again, very strong, we've seen around that 155 range from her in the past, she's looking in good shape, if she can go to this worlds and put together, you know, I would say a good day, a strong day, if we could see her doing 118 to 120, 150 to 155, it's a medal but isn't that crazy because Olivia, Lao Guifang, is there anyone else going to challenge that? No, probably not but it's crazy that that would only be a bronze. Next up, Sulfred Coanda, Olympic champion, multiple-time world champion, I'm almost getting tired of saying that at this point, she just hit 160 kilos in the front squat for two triples, she's so impressive, I've had quite a few conversations with her recently, she's such an awesome person and such a good weightlifter and the way that she moves that 160, her leg strength is just phenomenal, the way she's able to hold position in her upper body, her upper back strength is striking, so yeah, phenomenal lifting from her, excited to see her at 86, this will be the toughest quad for her, I think, you know, you've got Peng Kui Ting, you've got Alina Marushak, there are probably more than I'm not thinking of but it's a tough class, actually, this quad. Okay and then finally, let's wrap up with the Iranian test event, I've picked out five weightlifters that I want to talk about, the first is Adi Reza Yousefi, clean and jerk world record holder, phenomenally strong guy, not the best snatcher, although we did see him hit 200 off blocks recently, he snatched 190, you know, it's good, it's good, he's not going to become a world champion with a snatch like that, you know, he needs to get to 200 and then a 245 clean and jerk, my assumption, he's far from peaked, he can't always be taking 260 plus clean and jerks attempts because it's just too taxing on the body, so you know, it's a nice, what is it, 435 total, yeah, it's okay, it's okay, his teammate though, Ali Davoudi looked great, 205 snatch, which we've seen before from him but he's just, he's the biggest by like structure, I guess, shape, he's the biggest super in the world right now, Enzo Corgi will give him a run, Enzo's coming back at this World's 4 Germany by the way, which is amazing, exciting news, Davoudi looked good, 205, 252 clean, 260, so I mean, even if you just put those together, we're looking at 457, it doesn't rival what Gore can do, it doesn't rival what Lallian can do or Lasher when he gets back, but can Yousefi out total that, yeah, so Davoudi and Yousefi are going to have a great battle, I think Sherefiki is not going to be the selected super for them, anyway, let's move on, so we then have Mustafa Javadi, people sleep on Mustafa Javadi, you don't want to, 2023 World Champ, Carlos was injured, 2021, silver behind Carlos in the 81s, 204 clean and jerk at 81, unbelievable, I assume he's going to be an 85 here because Iran's already got quite a few 95s, 167, it's good, it's not, you know, it's not winning any medals at World's, 210 clean and jerk though, really good, really massive and it looks strong, so that's exciting stuff, we then have Ali Reza Nazeri, the 110 junior world record holder, took silver at World's, beat Uncle Russ, I still, I'm not over that, 183 snatch, 232 clean and jerk, it's the 32 clean and jerk that's exciting, you know, we know he's got a lot in him, we know, do we? I feel like I know he's got 235, I think his best day is going to be 90-35, I think 425 is his, sort of, his peak, but that should be, that's a medal, it's got to be a medal, behind Liu and Akbar, and then finally I want to talk about Ali Alipore, 95 kilo weight liberty, he looks absolutely phenomenal, he snatched 180 to start with, so two kilos under the world record by his teammate, and then 223 clean and jerk, second attempt, unofficial world record, it's a kilo more than Carlos, we've always got to take into account the fact that Carlos did 229, weighing 91 back in 2025, so it's still, it's technically a world record, unofficial, but we know it's not, but it's a big lift, 223, so he's over 400, which I already think is a major barrier for any 95, other than Carlos to cross, and if anyone does it during this quad, they deserve crazy props, but then he takes an attempt at 230, and that's the thing that I think is exciting, we've never seen Carlos attempt 230 at an international, and he gets under it, and he cleans it, and he doesn't quite get up with it, but it's close, so you've got Ali Alipore, you've got Kedemar, I still think Carlos will win it, but it's not going to be easy for him, that's what I'm trying to say, it's not going to be easy for him, that's the end of this week's news show, thank you all for tuning in, and I'll see you on the next one.