TEHRAN – Sohrab Moradi seized a gold medal at the 96kg at the West Asian Weightlifting Championship in Dubai, the UAE.

Moradi, who won a gold at 94kg in Rio but has suffered two serious injuries during qualifying, participated in the competition as the only Iranian lifter.

Iran was supposed to participate in the competition in Dubai with seven weightlifters but their flight was cancelled due to coronavirus threat.

He took a gold medal with a total of 370kg (163kg in snatch and 207kg in clean & jerk).

A weightlifter from Saudi Arabia won the silver medal with 302kg and Uzbekistan’s weightlifter claimed the bronze with 290kg.

Moradi badly injured his spine a year ago then dislocated a shoulder last July.

He also is hopeful of a good performance at the Asian Championships in Kazakhstan in April.

Moradi is way down in 78th place in the current rankings and would probably need to lift close to world-record levels in both those competitions to make it – but he is the world record holder in snatch and total at 96kg, both set when he won the 2018 world title.