The eagerly anticipated weightlifting competition at the Asian Games is due to start in Hangzhou tomorrow with hosts China facing North Korea ©Hangzhou 2022

China’s dominant weightlifting team will not know what sort of challenge to expect from North Korea at the Asian Games because their rivals have not lifted in international competition since December 2019.

At the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta Palembang, from which China was excluded because of historic doping cases, North Korea showed its strength by winning eight of the 15 medal events.

Between April and September 2019, North Korean lifters set five world records that still stand.

The country withdrew from the delayed 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo during the COVID-19 pandemic, then declined an opening to join the Paris 2024 qualifying programme in Cuba in June.

The Asian Games is not an Olympic qualifier, and North Korea will not be at Paris 2024, despite the fact that it has won more Olympic medals in weightlifting than any other sport.

One of those world record holders, Pak Jongju, competes at the Xiaoshan Sports Center Gymnasium, where 14 medal events are staged between tomorrow and October 8, the last day of the Asian Games.

North Korea won eight of the 15 gold medals in the last Asian Games at Jakarta Palembang 2018 in the absence of China but are an unknown quantity this time round ©Getty Images
North Korea won eight of the 15 gold medals in the last Asian Games at Jakarta Palembang 2018 in the absence of China but are an unknown quantity this time round ©Getty Images

Two of the North Korea team have never lifted in international competition before, according to the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) results database - Ri Wonju at 67 kilograms and Oh Kumthaek at 73kg.

China won a record seven Olympic gold medals Tokyo 2020, has eight leaders in the 10 Paris 2024 ranking lists, and had seven winners at the IWF World Championships that ended in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia on September 17.

All seven of those 2023 world champions are due to compete here, some at a heavier weight because the category in which they won is not on the Asian Games programme.

Liu Huihua has moved 20kg up the weights in 10 months.

He competes at 109kg in Hangzhou, where his opponents include two Olympic champions from Uzbekistan, Ruslan Nurudinov and Akbar Djuraev.

In a head-to-head in Riyadh, Djuraev came out on top.

Liu Huihua is one of seven Chinese world champions set to fly the home flag at Hangzhou 2022 ©IWF
Liu Huihua is one of seven Chinese world champions set to fly the home flag at Hangzhou 2022 ©IWF

China’s Olympic 73kg champion Shi Zhiyong does not compete because he is recovering from injury, which leaves the Indonesia’s clean and jerk world record holder Rahmat Erwin in a rematch with the man who beat him in Riyadh, Weeraphon Wichuma from Thailand.

Wichuma could be one of several medallists from Thailand, which has entered the maximum seven men and seven women.

China has two world record holders in its women’s team, Jiang Huihua and Liao Guifang.

The original entries included a third, but super-heavyweight Li Wenwen withdrew because of injury.