Pablo Lara broke the 167-pound weightlifting world record Thursday, becoming the second Cuban lifter to set a world mark in three days at the Central American and Caribbean Games.
"I'm very emotional," Lara, 25, a silver medalist at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, said minutes after lifting 451 pounds at regional championships here.His first clean and jerk of 447 pounds put him past the 446-pound mark set in Melbourne, Australia on Nov. 10 by Altymurad Orazdurdiev of the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan. Lara bettered his new record on his second try, and also gained gold medals for his snatch class lift of 352 pounds and for his total lift of 803 pounds.
On Tuesday, William Vargas lifted a record 270.6 pounds in the 119-pound snatch class en route to winning three gold medals. Vargas also broke a record set in Melbourne, passing the 270-pound mark set by both Hang Bin of China and Halil Multu of Turkey.