GUADALAJARA – Garik Karapetyan ended his junior career in style by winning a third straight world title in Guadalajara. The 20-year-old Armenian is a strong contender for the Best Male Athlete award at the World Junior Championships after his dominant performance in the men’s 102kg.
In a highly successful year, Karapetyan has won European senior and junior titles, claimed a snatch silver when finishing fifth at the senior World Championships, and now has another junior world title after making 175-203-378. That was a bigger total by 4kg than Rubanovskyi made in an exciting finish to the 109kg session.
There could be more to come because Karapetyan is entered in the IWF Grand Prix in Doha, an Olympic qualifier that begins on December 4. Armenia’s two other winners in Guadalajara, Gor Sahakyan and Aleksandra Grigoryan, are also heading to Doha.
“I don’t know yet whether I will lift or just weigh in,” said Karapetyan, who is one place behind team-mate Samvel Gasparyan near the top of the Paris 2024 rankings. “I like to compete all the time. My best moment of the year was winning the European Championships in my own country.”
Karapetyan, whose father Aleksandr was a World Championships silver medallist, holds all three junior world records at this weight and tried to beat two of them but failed both times, on 184kg in snatch and 215kg in clean and jerk. The 67kg winner Sahakyan also failed with a junior snatch world record attempt.
17-year-old Iranian Abolfazi Zare was second on 166-199-365 and Georgia’s Gurami Vekua was in third place.
