Cao Lei (; born 24 December 1983 in

Qinhuangdao Qinhuangdao (; ) is a port city on the coast of China in northern Hebei. It is administratively a prefecture-level city, about east of Beijing, on the Bohai Sea, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea. Its population during the 2020 national ...

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and 0 ...

) is a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

weightlifter Olympic weightlifting, or Olympic-style weightlifting (officially named Weightlifting), is a sport in which athletes compete in lifting a barbell loaded with weight plates from the ground to overhead, with each athlete trying to successfully lif ...

. She was born in north China's

Province and was raised in northeastern

Heilongjiang Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...

Province.

Career

Cao Lei started weightlifting training at the age of 11 and attended Daging City sports school in 1997 when she was selected to the Heilongjiang province weightlifting team coached by Qixi Fu. Lei made her debut in the international field in 2001 after winning the national championships in Asian Championships 63 kilo category by winning gold with a result of 107,5 kg (a junior world record at the time) in snatch, and 127,5 kg in clean and jerk, totaling 235 kg. The next year she started training with national team under the supervision of Ma Wenhui and she moved 69 kilo weight class in which she won the junior world championships 2003 with 105+140 kg performance. In 2005 Cao placed fourth in the National games and later the year won gold in the

East Asian Games The East Asian Games was a multi-sport event organized by the East Asian Games Association (EAGA) and held every four years from 1993 to 2013. Among those who competed included athletes from East Asian countries and territories of the Olympic ...

. The next year she moved up one weight class and participated in the women's -75 kg at the 2006 World Weightlifting Championships and won the gold medal, snatching 118 kg and clean and jerking an additional 150 kg for a total of 268 kg. Later the same year, she took gold in the Asian Games, besting her year ranking mark to 120 kg in the snatch and 152 kg in the clean and jerk. At the 2007 World Weightlifting Championships she won the gold medal again in the same category, with a total of 286 kg. At the

2008 Beijing Olympic The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Nati ...

games, Cao won China's seventh weightlifting gold medal in the women's -75 kg weightlifting division. She lifted 128 kg (282.2 pounds) in the snatch and 154 kg (339.5 pounds) in the clean and jerk, giving her a total score of 282 kg (621.7 pounds). She set new Olympic records in the snatch and clean and jerk events, as well as setting a new overall score record. Cao attempted to break the total world record of 286 kg in her final jerk attempt by requesting 159 kg (350.5 pounds), but was unsuccessful. At a news conference held after her win, Cao was overcome with emotion while speaking about her gold medal. She dedicated her win to the people of China as well as to her mother, who died two months earlier: 2009 she finished her weightlifting grand slam by taking gold in

Chinese National Games The National Games of the People's Republic of China (), sometimes known as the All China Games (though not to be confused with the All-China Games), is the premier sports event in China at national level. It is usually held once every four yea ...

with a result of 125 kg in the snatch, 150 kg in the clean and jerk adding to 275 kg total. In the 2009 weightlifting world championships she wasn't able to sustain her supremacy over the 75 kilo weight class as Svetlana Podobedova of

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

swept three gold medals, Cao following her to take silvers in all three disciplines. Later that year she represented her country in

taking gold with routine performance of 252 kg total. On 12 January 2017 it was announced that because of a doping violation she had been retroactively disqualified from the 2008 Olympic Games.

References

External links

Athlete Biography
at beijing2008
Olympic Profile
in Chinese * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cao, Lei Living people 1983 births Chinese female weightlifters Olympic weightlifters of China People from Qinhuangdao Weightlifters at the 2008 Summer Olympics Place of birth missing (living people) Asian Games medalists in weightlifting Weightlifters from Hebei Weightlifters at the 2006 Asian Games Weightlifters at the 2010 Asian Games Asian Games gold medalists for China Asian Games silver medalists for China Doping cases in weightlifting Chinese sportspeople in doping cases Medalists at the 2006 Asian Games Medalists at the 2010 Asian Games Competitors stripped of Summer Olympics medals World Weightlifting Championships medalists