Teenager Maurus breaks drought by winning frist US men's weightlifting world medal in 20 years

ANAHEIM, United States, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- Host athlete Harrison Maurus broke the jinx for the United States as he won the country's first weightlifting world medals in 20 years with two bronzes in men's 77kg at the world championships held in Anaheim, California on Saturday.

Maurus, 17, claimed bronze in both the clean and jerk and total with 193kg and a total of 348kg apiece, earning Team USA's first men's weightlifting world medal since Wes Barnett earned clean and jerk silver and total bronze in the 108kg in 1997. The US had not medaled at worlds in either gender since 2005.

Maurus never expected to become one of the world' s best weightlifters. In fact, he was busy dedicating his life to gymnastics until he gave weightlifting a shot in 2013.

Just four years later, Maurus has proven to be the weightlifting superstar the US has been waiting for.

"There are more and more kids in the US training weightlifting, I believe the sport will become popular one day in future," said Maurus, adding that he will be aiming for the Tokyo Summer Games.

With his clean and jerk lift of 193kg, Maurus also set a new youth world record, beating the previous record of 192kg he set in April this year.

Competing at his first senior-level worlds, Maurus continued a string of success that first saw him win silver in all three events at the 2016 youth world championships, followed by gold in total and clean and jerk, plus silver in snatch, at the same event a year later.

Egypt's Mohamed Mahmoud swept the three gold medals with a total of 361kg, while Rejepbay Rejepov of Turkmenistan took overall silver with 352kg. Enditem