Richmond Osarfo still holds Africa’s record in 109kg Clean and Jerk

Accra,– Retired Ghanaian weightlifter, Richmond Osarfo’s 205kg clean and jerk record made at the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championship in 2018 still stands unbroken.

A latest African record released by the Weightlifting Federation of Africa (WFA), indicated that as at December 31, 2021, Osarfo still had his name in the records book of the WFA after three years.

Osarfo, who competed for Ghana in the 109kg body weight in the men’s junior division, retired from the Black Cranes, national weightlifting team of Ghana shortly after returning from the 2018 World Championships held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

He participated in 10 international competitions including the Commonwealth Games and World Championships. His first event was the 2016 IWF Youth World Championship where he finished 10th. He went further to compete in the 2016 Commonwealth Weightlifting Junior Championships and won bronze.

Osarfo, who is currently based in the United States of America (USA), again competed in the Senior Commonwealth Championships and finished sixth and 20th in the 2017 IWF Junior World Championships. In the same year, he finished fifth in the Commonwealth Championships and won silver in the Junior Commonwealth Championships.

He also won silver again at the Africa Junior Championships in 2017. He ranked 24th in the IWF World Championships in 2017 and fourth in the 2018 Commonwealth Games. He then moved up three places to finish 21st in the 2018 IWF World Championships after which he bid the Ghana Weightlifting Federation (GWF) farewell.

However, the snatch and total record in the same category was held by Aymen Bacha, from Tunisia. He did a snatch record of 173kg and a total of 366kg

Both records were made at the Weightlifting Africa Championships held in Cairo, Egypt in 2019.

Source: Ghana News Agency