Aniq seals Olympic ticket

Teenage weightlifter Muhd Aniq Kasdan bagged three golds and broke two national record in the men's 55kg event at the Indonesia International Weightlifting Championship.

PETALING JAYA: After an eight-year hiatus, Malaysia will be represented in the Olympic weightlifting competition again.

Reigning Commonwealth Games champion Aniq Kasdan has qualified on merit for Paris Olympics after finishing eight overall in men's 61kg category at the IWF World Cup in Phuket tonight (Tuesday).

The 21-year-old finished with a total overall of 290kg in the men's 61kg.

Aniq thus will keep his current eighth spot in the Olympic rankings for Paris when the International Weightifting Federation (IWF) release the list of qualifiers who made the cut on merit in two weeks time.

The top 10 lifters in the Olympic rankings will qualify on merit for Paris Olympics. Only one lifter from each nation is listed in the Olympic rankings.

China's current world record holder and Olympic champion Li Fabin won the overall category with a total of 312kg ahead of American Morris Hampton Miller (303kg) and North Korean Pak Myong-jin (301kg). Fellow Malaysian lifter Aznil Bidin finished 10th overall with 282kg.

Mohd Hafifi Mansor was the last Malaysian weightlifter to compete at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.