Liang Xiaomei became the new clean and jerk world record holder in the women's 81kg category ©IWF

Liang Xiaomei did something that nobody had managed in five years when she extended her lead at the top of the Olympic rankings and claimed China's seventh victory at the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championships here.

When new weight categories came into use at the 2018 IWF World Championships, world standards were set for each of them.

Because they had never been met in snatch, clean and jerk or total, there were no world records in the women’s 81 kilograms.

When Liang, who will be 26 on Wednesday (September 20), made her final attempt at 159kg, she became the new clean and jerk world record holder.

Her older Olympic champion team-mate Wang Zhouyu, who won in Tokyo at 87kg but has had to drop down since that weight was dropped for Paris 2024, declined her final attempt after reaching 155kg, it left Liang in the limelight.

Oceania had its first medallist of the Championships when Eileen Cikamatana finished third behind Liang and Wang.

The Chinese pair’s numbers are very similar and Liang said "that really helps us to improve, because we push each other in training".

The only Olympic category with three blanks for record holders now is the men’s 102kg, in which so many athletes have underperformed throughout qualifying.

Oceania had its first medallist of the World Championships when Eileen Cikamatana of Australia claimed bronze ©Brian Oliver
Oceania had its first medallist of the World Championships when Eileen Cikamatana of Australia claimed bronze ©Brian Oliver

Liang made all six lifts to win on 122-159-281, and is within range of filling in the other blanks in snatch and total, where the world standards are 127kg and 283kg.

Wang, 29, made 122-155-277, her best total by some distance at this weight.

Neisi Dajomes from Ecuador was third at halfway but retired, leaving Cikamatana and Mattie Rogers to make it a battle between Australia and the United States for third place.

Cikamatana, who has taken two years to fully recover from a bad injury sustained at the 2021 World Championships, claimed it on 110-146-256, her best total at this weight since January 2020.

"That was a surprise because I didn’t know what I was doing in terms of medals, I just knew I had to go out and make my lifts," she said after finishing 4kg clear of Rogers, who improved her best qualifying total by 4kg.

"I was like, 'Oh, two bronze medals, that’s nice.' Now I’ll try to do better in Qatar."

That means two Olympic qualifiers in three weeks for Cikamatana, the Oceania Championships in Solomon Islands and the IWF Grand Prix II in Doha in November and December.

Cikamatana's first qualifying total puts her straight in at sixth place.