SYDNEY, Australia — For Karoliina Leppaluoto Lundahl, the inaugural women's Olympic weightlifting competition ended up being a three-and-out affair Wednesday at the Sydney Convention Center.
For Colombia's Maria Isabel Urritia, the event concluded in a more historic fashion in the same 75-kilogram division.
All thanks to the fact that she's packing fewer pounds — make that kilograms — than the competition.
Urritia, Nigeria's Ruth Ogbeifo and Chinese Taipei's Kuo Yi-Hang totaled 245 kilograms (about 540 pounds) each in the competition, which combines a lifter's best of three lifts in the snatch and the best of three in the clean and jerk.
In the snatch, the lifter must bring the bar completely over the head in one fluid motion, while the clean and jerk allows the lifter to pause with the bar at the chest before taking it overhead.
Under Olympic tiebreaker rules, advantage is given to the lighter weightlifters.
Urritia, who weighed in at 73.28 kilograms (about 161 pounds), cleared 110 kilograms in the snatch and 135 in the clean and jerk for her 245 total. Ogbeifo, at 74.20, lifted 105 in the snatch and 140 in the clean and jerk; Kuo, who weighs 74.52, went 107.5 in the snatch and 137.5 in the clean and jerk.
So, weights of a different sort — that of the lifter, not those on the bars — determined the medals, with Urritia earning the gold, Ogbeifo the silver and Kuo the bronze.
Urritia's gold was the first ever for Colombia.
"It is a huge responsibility for me to win the medal," she said. "It's the first medal and the first time in history the (Colombian) anthem has been played at the Olympics."
It's the first time that women's weightlifting had been part of the slate at any Summer Games, although men's weightlifting has long been an Olympic staple.
Lundahl, who starred in the shot put a decade-plus ago and currently resides in Dallas, made a brief cameo appearance in the competition. She took her first attempt in snatch at 105 kilograms and failed to lift that weight in all three of her attempts, the last time tumbling backward in an awkward manner.
The 1998 women's world champion at 75 kilograms was out of the Sydney Olympics at that point. Without a weight mark in the snatch, she was disqualified for the clean-and-jerk session of the event.
Lundahl, who competed in the shot put for Finland in the 1996 Atlanta Games and finished 19th, wasn't the only heralded lifter to struggle Wednesday in the Olympic competition.
Kazakhstan's Tatyana Khromova, who was ranked second in the world, missed on her three attempts at 132.5 kilograms in the clean and jerk and also was disqualified. And Russia's Svetlana Khabirova, previously ranked in the top three in the world, managed only a sixth-place finish.
E-mail: taylor@desnews.com